


diagnosis love

by mintakas



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Hospital, Alternate Universe - Medical, Blow Jobs, Coming Untouched, Doctor AU, Eventual Smut, Hand Jobs, Light Angst, M/M, Romantic Comedy, apologies to erwin stans he's a bit of a nob in this, eren is 28 levi is 38, ereri, he's just very busy bless him, levi is really just trying to figure shit out whilst being in love with eren and also saving lives, levi's literally a simp for eren, theres a lot of fooling around in supply closets, woop the kids are all surgeons thanks greys anatomy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:42:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 55,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28514391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintakas/pseuds/mintakas
Summary: Dr Levi Ackerman is the cardiothoracic attending for Trost Medical, the country's leading teaching hospital. Unmatched in his field and yet doomed in his love life, Levi has become confident that his skill is better utilized repairing the heart rather than nurturing it.Enter Eren Jaeger, a doe eyed and bushy tailed third year resident specialising in pediatric medicine.(or - how levi ackerman and eren jaeger fall in love whilst saving lives)
Relationships: Levi/Eren Yeager
Comments: 112
Kudos: 341





	1. in the beginning

**Author's Note:**

> 90% of my medical knowledge comes from greys thank u shonda rhimes

The first time Levi really notices Eren, it’s on the fourth floor stairwell. Eren’s face is hidden in his scrubs, the blue polyester bunched up in his fists as he cried. Levi cringes at the poorly stifled sobs bouncing off the sterile-white walls; when there was nothing he could do to make it better, people’s pain made him uncomfortable. Even as an acclaimed cardiothoracic surgeon, whose success rates were unmatched; he was no stranger to giving bad news. There was something so deeply unsettling about the moment a person realized you _failed_ , something disturbing in slipping from the pedestal. Giving bad news never got any easier, but in the years Levi had been the cardiothoracic attending for Trost Medical, he’d developed battle armour – a cloak of indifference to shield him from the blows, protect his skin from the chisel, angrily chipping away at him each time he had to tell a husband his wife had died on the table, or a mother that there was nothing else he could do to keep her child alive. 

Levi had remembered overhearing the case of the ten year old girl they had been treating for the last few years – acute lymphocytic leukemia. Eren Jaeger had been working closely on the case with pediatric attending Dr Hanji Zoe since the child’s diagnosis just days before her seventh birthday. It had been the long fight, as they always were. He’d heard Dr Zoe mention, a few weeks prior in the attendings lounge, that they were in discussion of withdrawing care. She was no longer responding to treatment and the cancer had spread. The father lost his wife in a car crash only two years prior.  


They were surgeons, after all, and not in the business of deciding what was fair. 

And it is owed to this very fact that Levi doesn’t feel at all guilty awkwardly side stepping Eren, certain that if he was quiet enough then he’d make it past without the blubbering resident having realized he was ever there. That is, until his sneaker catches Eren’s scrubs, and the sudden movement makes him jump.

“Doctor Ackerman! I’m sorry – I was just, uh…” He trails off sadly, wiping at his eyes and sniffling. His face is all red and puffy, the front of his hair pushed back over his forehead with what Levi can only assume is a gross mix of tears and sweat. He tries not to grimace as he produces a tissue from his lab coat. 

“Wipe your nose, Jaegar. It’s not a sin to cry but getting snot everywhere is another thing entirely.” 

Eren offers a small smile, eyes still brimming with tears – and Levi realizes that it’s too late for him to walk away. Maybe the kid needed to talk about it, maybe he didn’t – whatever helped him sleep at night.

But Eren simply stands there, staring at him, and Levi’s left foot shifts uncomfortably. “The Haley Michaels case?” he offers, deciding to throw Eren a bone, a hand extended in the dark. A solid ten seconds passes in which Eren just blows his nose, and Levi stands there like a fish out of water. 

“Yeah,” he nods, tucking the tissue away and diving his hands into his pockets. “I mean – we knew it was coming. I just – I took this one real hard, y’know?” The way he looks up at Levi, these big wet eyes scanning his face, as though there he might find his reprieve. Levi was too tired (and too old) to give it to him. 

Instead offers this weary lift of his shoulders, and Eren’s eyelashes flicker minutely until he’s looking at the ground, and all of a sudden he’s apologizing, hands frantic as he tries to smooth his hair back down.

“Sorry, Doctor Ackerman, I didn’t mean to be unprofessional. I have a surgery with Dr Zoe to get to –,”  


He stands, turning to head back up the stairwell, but Levi is backtracking, sticking his arm out. He’s not sure why, at first – it’s not like it was unusual to find surgeons crying in corridors or tucked away in medicine closets wondering why they ever thought a career in surgery was a good idea. In fact, Levi firmly believed these moments to be crucial; that it propelled you forwards, the realization that they were _not Gods_ , that life was fragile. The ones you couldn’t save only made you more desperate to save the rest. Real surgeons were made in those moments. 

The kid was young, had a whole career to realize how unforgiving their profession could be. But Levi remembers Hanji singing Eren’s praises, that he was the future of pediatric medicine. He was going to see a lot of kids die, and save a lot of them too. But maybe this once, Levi thinks, he needed a break. “Jaeger, just a sec. Having emotions doesn’t make you unprofessional, it makes you human. And this,” he gestures vaguely around them. “This gets…” he hesitates, mouth curling around the next word, alien on his tongue. “Easier.”  


Eren makes this weird sound, a half laugh that gets stuck somewhere in his throat. The look of embarrassment on his face gives way to something that Levi can’t quite place. Wonders if the kid realizes that was complete bullshit. “That’s a lie to make me feel better, isn’t it?” The corners of his mouth lift in a smile, _that’s a yes, then_. Levi sighs, looks at the floor. Notes the fact that despite his scrubbing, his left sneaker is still littered with speckled blood, remnants from the chaos that was the ER fifteen hours earlier. 

“Yeah, sorry. That was a lie. Not the being unprofessional part, though. Just the bit after.”

Eren palms the back of his neck. “Hah. That’s really kind of you, sir.” He swallows hard, ascending a few more stairs as Levi carries on down. As Eren places a hand on the door leading back to the corridor, he stops. “You know what Mr. Michaels said to me?”

Levi flexes his fingers over the railing, still numb from fourteen hours of surgery. Or itching for another, he couldn’t always tell the two apart. 

“What was it?”  


“He said when he lost his wife, he realised he wasn’t a husband anymore. And now Haley’s gone, he isn’t a father either.” 

Levi sighs. A huge, full body sigh that lifts his shoulders and puffs out his chest. Tries not to cringe at the fact he’s about to sound like something regurgitated from a John Green novel. “At least he was somebody to someone. That’s all any of us can hope for.” Eren looks as though he’s mulling that over, (Levi isn’t sure whether his subconscious did drag that up from some cheesy YA movie) – and as Eren toys with the lanyard around his neck, Levi’s gaze is drawn to his ID photo. Even though he can’t see it too well from this distance, he is certain Eren’s hair is at his shoulders. The useless observation is interrupted by his pager beeping in his pocket, just as Eren delivers the most profound sentence Levi thinks he’s heard all week:

“We save lives, sir. I think we’ll always be somebody to someone out there.” 

Levi glances at the electronic device. 911. The gears spring into action, and he’s rushing down the stairs, clearing the last three in one leap. Throws his weight against the double doors, shouting a parting remark over his shoulder at the young resident:

“Then we should count ourselves lucky!”

*

The second time comes at the supermarket. It’s six thirty in the morning, and Eren is staring – unblinking – at a bag of mini pretzels. He’s wearing a pair of navy joggers that look like they’ve seen better days, an oversized My Chemical Romance t shirt, big round glasses, and a bright pink elasticated headband. Which actually is almost pointless (his hair isn’t long) save for maybe his fringe, which pokes out from the band in different directions, adding to the erratic ramen-eating-college-student-haven’t-slept-in-four-days vibe that he seems to be sporting. Levi wonders if the band is habit from when he had longer hair, remembering his ID where it appeared to skim his shoulders. Pictures him with a ponytail and isn’t entirely sure why.

Levi’s pushing a cart down the same aisle, on the hunt for some kettle chips when he steers the damn thing straight in to an abandoned stock trolley.. Eren literally doesn’t flinch, despite the loud crash, and Levi’s knuckles tighten over the handle of the cart, wonders if the kid was in the middle of an existential crisis. He spots the kettle chips to the right of him, grabs at them mindlessly, drops them into the basket, clears his throat. Frowns when none of the above does anything to pull Eren out of his stupor. Eventually does this big resolute huff and cautiously approaches him, the wheel of the trolley squeaking obnoxiously as he went.  


“Uh… Jaeger?”

The kid – he blinks, once – no, twice – at this bag of pretzels, and Levi can’t quite tell but it looks like he’s about to start crying. He glances up, really slowly, and for a second seems to just stare straight through Levi, but then a look of recognition passes over his face and he blinks again.

“Sour cream.” 

He gestures at the bag he holds, like some assistant on QVC showing off a super expensive microwave.  


“You’re gonna have to help me out here…” Levi trails off, wondering if he should be checking the kid into the psych ward. 

Eren talks with this terrifying calmness to his voice. “I’ve been coming to this store for four years. They’ve always had my normal salted pretzels. But now, for the last two weeks, every time I come in, they only have sour cream and chive.” He pauses, waiting for Levi’s outrage. “I’ve just come off an eighteen hour shift. My scoliosis kid told me he thinks _dinosaurs are dumb_ – apparently dinosaurs aren’t cool anymore? – I’ve been running scut for like eleven hours because there’s literally _nothing_ happening and all I want is my god damn pretzels.” 

His eyes are all glossy and brimming with tears, but it’s like hearing himself out loud makes him realise he sounds a like like a little privileged asshole. He rubs at his eyes, the glasses that Levi didn’t know he needed lifting in the process.

“Should I be miserable for you that nobody’s life is in immediate danger?” Levi cocks an eyebrow. “Or that your biggest problem seems to be the store not having your pretzels?”

Eren visibly slumps, chucking the unwanted bag back on the shelf. He’s silent for a full three seconds before he looks back up. 

“Dinosaurs don’t stop being cool,” he whines. “The kid made me feel about a thousand years old. You should pity me for that, at least.”

“Wait till you’re my age, then you can complain about kids making you feel old.”

He’s not sure if that had been a feeble attempt at divulging Eren’s actual age, though from the fact he’s not got a single grey hair and that his skin is literally _glowing_ , Levi’s sure he can’t have seen 30 yet. What Levi gets, instead of the clarification, is a compliment he hadn’t seen coming.

“You definitely don’t look old, sir. If I didn’t know better I’d think you were a resident, too.” 

It’s as though Eren feels as weird about it as Levi does, because his eyes widen a little for a split second, like he were really surprised by himself – and Levi’s toes curl as he cringes. Wishes for Eren’s sake he could think of something funny to say. He can’t. 

Fortunately, Eren sort of manages to rescue them. He scuffs his sneaker against the floor and shoves his hands into his pockets. “Anyway. Why are _you_ here at such an ungodly hour?” 

Levi gestures vaguely at his shopping trolley. “I’ve taken to doing my shopping early in the morning. Less people about, you see.” 

Nodding, Eren looks up contemplatively. “That… doesn’t surprise me, actually.” 

“Oh?” Levi raises a calculated brow. 

Eren backtracks a little. “Well, I just meant – I meant that you have this kind of – I wouldn’t say antisocial, as such –,” 

“You wouldn’t.” Levi smirks, and so does Eren, silly and lopsided. 

“I wouldn’t. You just have a vibe, y’know? Of course _I_ think it’s super cool and edgy and fits your whole badass best in the country cardiothoracic surgeon thing, but the interns are fucking petrified of you.” 

That makes Levi chuckle. “ _You_ were an intern, not so long ago.” 

Eren lifts his chin in defiance. “I was well above fearing the attendings, actually. They all loved me.” 

“You once tore an aortic valve in my OR,” challenges Levi. 

“I get it, you never once fucked up.” He’s still smiling, and Levi can’t help but notice a crooked scar that that runs vertically across the outer corner of his upper lip. Wonders how he got it but decides against asking.  
Instead just offers this curt laugh, envisioning the days of falling asleep on his feet during his intern year.  


"I fucked up plenty."

“Yeah, right. I can’t imagine you as an intern, or even a resident. I reckon you came out the womb performing heart transplants.” 

That makes Levi belly laugh, and all of a sudden he’s forgetting they’re still stood in the middle of a supermarket at six thirty in the morning, and that Eren had been in the midst of an emotional breakdown. Feels like two friends chatting, and realises this is the first time he’d ever seen Eren out of work. Notes, absently, that it might make for a funny story. 

“Hey, do you wear contacts? I’ve never seen you in glasses.” 

“Oh, yeah, always – I’m super short sighted. Like, I can’t see shit without these.” He demonstrates by removing his glasses and squinting hard at Levi the moment they’re off. He looks a bit like a mole and Levi laughs again. “These damn things are so heavy that I couldn’t really wear them during surgery,” he gestures to his specs. “Even into high school I was the loser kid with glasses and braces – you know, a real catch.” 

“Alright, Stevie Wonder, we all have a sob story.” 

“Oh, really? And yours is?” 

Levi doesn’t miss a beat. 

“My mother died when I was a child. My uncle found me shortly after, malnourished, and took me in only to use me as a drug mule.” 

Eren’s smile drops instantly and the poor kid looks absolutely mortified – and Levi keeps his pokerface, absolutely emotionless. Until, that is, he decides Eren has suffered enough – and then he’s laughing. 

“You – you’re an asshole,” protests Eren, breathing a sigh of relief. Levi cocks an eyebrow. 

“You seem quite hellbent on that opinion.” 

Eren opens his mouth, probably to defend himself, but Levi is waving him off. “I’m kidding Jaeger, relax."  


*

Tonight, though, Levi hadn’t planned on any significant interactions between he and Eren. Then again, he hadn’t planned on the others, either.

It’s chief of surgery Erwin Smith’s birthday, and Hanji had insisted that the attendings and residents get together for “a drink or two”, but anyone who knows Hanji would tell you that meant ten rounds of shots and falling out of a cab at 3am. Their bar of choice was sleazy, black interior with sticky black floors, sticky bar tops, neon lights and the pungent odour of cigarette smoke. Whilst in reality, they’d have been able to afford something much more fancy, they expected nothing less from Hanji. 

It’s only eleven, and too early for Levi to make his swift exit. So instead, he’s squeezed into the largest booth they have shared with twelve other doctors. Neuro attending Mike Zacharias at his right, Hanji to his left. Also known as: a nightmare situation. The topic of conversation is a fictitious one million dollar grant that’s got everyone arguing why their department would be the most deserving.

“I’m just saying,” Mike is yelling, throwing back his third shot. He’s shouting to be heard over the music, and Levi knows he’ll be leaving with a headache. “If any department were to get that type of money, it should be neuro.” 

The sound of glasses clinking loudly is enough to pull Levi’s attention as Erwin and Nile (Erwin’s favourite anesthetist) return with another round of drinks. Levi takes his whiskey, nods his thanks at them. Hanji tells him it’s an old man’s drink and Levi kicks them under the table. It’s a running gag because at 37, Hanji’s only one year younger than him. (Or one year and four months, as they would tell you.) He supposes, absently, that Hanji is his best friend. Started their internship together thirteen years ago, even lived together into their residency. Sometimes, when alone in his apartment, Levi might even say he misses it. Misses the shared therapy sessions sat in the kitchen at two in the morning chasing the bottom of countless bottles of cheap, nasty wine. Even got caught stealing a bottle from the attending’s lounge on more than one occasion; the stuff was expensive and an internship salary was why they were having to flat together in the first place. 

“If there’s one department that _doesn’t_ need more funding, it’s neuro,” Levi argues. “Besides, it’d be better utilized in cardio. The heart is far more unpredictable than the brain, after all.” 

Mike raises a careful brow. “We’re still talking about surgery, right, Levi?” he pokes his tongue into his cheek, a huge grin plastered on his smug face. “Because that was fucking sentimental.” He feigns concern, mockingly placing a hand softly over his shoulder. Levi eyes it like a rattlesnake.

“You are _not_ touching me with that sticky, germ ridden –,”

“- Oh, come on, now, Levi. Don’t mind him, Mike, he hasn’t been laid in forever,” interrupts Hanji, smirking at the two of them.

Levi chokes a little on his drink. “Literally how on earth would you know –,” he protests, that particular topic one that he’d like to avoid entirely. Hanji isn’t listening, however, tightening their ponytail as they suddenly address the whole booth, drowning out the sound of Mike explaining to Levi that he should feel “blessed to be touched by such skilled hands.” The double entendre makes Levi’s stomach turn a little.

“Anyway, you’re both wrong. A million dollar grant would go straight to peds. Think of the children! I’m doing ground breaking surgeries on the little ones who will one day take the reigns and develop the next wave of ground breaking medicine….” The sound of their voice is lost to the sudden uproar of the table, and Levi can just about make out ortho complaining that it’s about time it was taken seriously.

Erwin is suddenly leaning in, hitting his palm loudly against the tabletop. “Alright, alright, everyone! This isn’t the boardroom, you aren’t pitching your cases. Jeez, stop talking about work! Anyone would think none of you had lives…” 

There is a very distinct chorus around the table of people protesting that they do not, in fact, have lives outside of the hospital – and Erwin is laughing, throwing his hands up in defeat. 

Suffice it to say, that when it’s time for another round, Levi is happy to nominate himself to go up to the bar. Mike had offered to help with the drinks but Levi had insisted (twice) that he was fine making two trips – anything for five minutes peace.

He stands as far away from the bar as possible whilst still appearing like he were waiting to be served; happy to be elbow deep inside someone’s chest cavity but not so eager to be covered in whatever dubious concoction of liquor is currently coating the bar. Feels his phone vibrate in his pocket and rolls his eyes at the series of incoming messages from Hanji:

_**23:09 Hanji Zoe ~saving lives, eating fries~ ^.^** : ur butt looks rly good in those jeans  
**23:09 Hanji Zoe ~saving lives, eating fries~ ^.^** : u know this is a gay bar right???  
**23:09 Hanji Zoe ~saving lives, eating fries~ ^.^** : im sure there are plenty of guys here who would tap that  
**23:10 Hanji Zoe ~saving lives, eating fries~ ^.^** : maybe tonights the night to break ur 5 year dry spell!!_

Levi glares at them over his shoulder before furiously typing back. 

_**23:10 Dr. Levi Ackerman, MD** : Firstly, quit looking at my ass, you predator  
**23:10 Dr. Levi Ackerman, MD** : Secondly, I wouldn’t touch anyone here with a ten foot barge pole  
**23:11 Dr. Levi Ackerman, MD** : Thirdly, what on Earth makes you think I haven’t had sex in five years?_

As soon as he sees Hanji typing, he regrets the question.

_**23:11 Hanji Zoe ~saving lives, eating fries~ ^.^** i’ve known u a long time levi. i also know that its BEEN a long time heheheh  
**23:12 Hanji Zoe ~saving lives, eating fries~ ^.^** erwin was ages ago. its time to move on.  
**23:12 Dr. Levi Ackerman, MD** : I’m not having this discussion.  
**23:14 Dr. Levi Ackerman, MD** : BUT if I was going to, I’d tell you that it’s NOT been five years. What a ridiculous assumption  
**23:14 Hanji Zoe ~saving lives, eating fries~ ^.^** : who u trying to convince :-)_

__

__

Levi blows air from his nostrils, shoves his phone into his pocket. Refuses to justify that with an answer. His tenuous relationship with Erwin – and the way it ended – just the thought has him chewing the inside of his cheek.  
He has a list of drinks as long as his arm, a growing headache, very thin patience and thinks all hope might be lost when some drunk idiot whacks into his side, sending him flying into the bar stool next to him. The stool skids off into the jukebox and he ends up on his ass, the culprit stumbling out into the smoking area like a baby elephant. 

“Jesus fuck…” 

The place looks somehow more disgusting down here and Levi wishes he was anywhere else. Ideally, in the middle of an OR. (An aortic dissection repair would be nice, but he’d take what he could get. Hell, he’d even swap this for an appendectomy).  


“Need a hand there, sir?” 

Levi’s muttering a string of profanities under his breath as he looks up, wondering who the hell was calling him sir here – and he is greeted by the concerned face of Eren Jaeger, almost unrecognizable out of scrubs. He’s wearing a black bomber jacket, white shirt and skinny jeans, hair styled with gel (not tears this time). It’s a far cry from the states that doctors usually see each other in, and Levi is momentarily impressed. The feeling is fleeting, however, gives way to the horror of the realization that he’s _on the floor_. He wordlessly takes Eren’s outstretched hand, who hauls him up with ease.

“Thank you, Jaeger,” says Levi, hoping his face doesn’t betray how royally fucked off he is. Actually – no, doesn’t particularly care if it does.

“Oh, call me Eren, sir.”

“Not if you insist on calling me _sir_.” His tone is stern but he cocks an eyebrow and smirks, and Eren laughs, leans into the bar with crossed arms. Levi’s nostrils flare. Isn’t sure if that interaction had counted as flirting or not – actually, can’t remember the last time he tried it. Doesn’t recall having ever heard any rumors about Eren’s sexual endeavors so isn’t sure whether he’s into guys anyway, but then, is sure that if he had been shagging anyone that the Chinese whispers would have shimmied down the grapevine to him by now. In fact, hates himself for that line of thought – wishes Hanji would _get out of his head._

“So, where have you been?” he asks, suddenly feeling like he’s forgotten how to engage in casual conversation. “I’ve been enduring this nonsense for almost an hour already.” 

Eren palms the back of his neck, rolls his eyes so hard Levi thinks he hears it. “Ugh. I couldn’t get away. One one of my patient’s coded in the fucking elevator.”  


They share a look that is reserved solely for surgeons, and Eren laughs down at his feet. Pushes a hand through a perfectly mussed fringe, and Levi becomes suddenly very aware of his own hands, wonders if he ever does anything remotely attractive with them. Remembers that he repairs human hearts and reminds himself not to be so fucking pathetic. The barman smiles at Levi and apologizes for the wait, and Levi is shocked to find himself almost grateful for it. He’s glad his first encounter here with Eren was away from the lunatics at their table.  


They take the drinks back to the others, Eren’s huge spade hands able to hold two more glasses than Levi is capable of. Hanji is overjoyed to see Eren, and yanks him into a bear hug over the booth table. 

“My little protégé!” they squeal, letting him free from their death grip to squish his cheeks together. 

Erwin is spluttering over his drink, waving his hand about. “Alright, Hanji, the last thing I need is a sexual harassment law suit on my hands. Let the boy be.”  


He’s joking, of course, but Eren’s laughing nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. “Well, obviously I would never – of course I don’t mind that sort of thing –,” his eyes flick nervously to Levi and Levi looks anywhere else, sliding back into the booth next to Mike and unceremoniously necking at least a quarter of his whiskey. Wants to kick himself for feeling like a fucking teenager with a crush. He’s glad when the only possible space for Eren is squeezed into the opposite end of the booth.

And of course, Hanji misses _nothing_ , because when they sit back down after attacking Eren, they’re just staring at him. 

“I haven’t seen you throw a drink back like that since intern exams.”

Levi snorts. “Well, I was 26.” 

“Irrelevant. Something’s got you all in a twist.”

Hanji rests their chin against the palm of their hand, eyes narrowed as they scrutinise him. Levi can pinpoint the exact moment the idea strikes them. “Or someone?” they gasp, dropping their hand against the table top with a huge thud.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” hisses Levi. Knows it’s pointless because Hanji was like a dog with a bone. 

They scan the table briefly, and then their eyes flicker minutely to Eren. It takes a split second before there’s a huge, shit eating grin spreading across their face. They’re about to say something else when Levi kicks them under the table for the second time this evening.

“Whatever you’re thinking, stop,” he warns, trying his best to keep his voice low but still loud enough to be heard. Hanji looks like they might explode.

“It’s him, isn’t it? You’d never fuck anyone else here – well, maybe Petra, if she was a guy, but she’s not, so – and Erwin, obviously, because you already did…”

He did sleep with Petra once. It was a secret shared only by the two of them, because at that time Levi was _almost_ sure he was gay and decidedly _not_ bisexual, and because Petra hated his guts back then. It was the first year into their residency, all thanks to bottle of tequila and the lewd little thigh highs she’d been wearing to the party that evening. Levi had never slept with a woman before in his life, and it wasn’t until he had his head between her legs that he realised it wasn’t an experience he wished to repeat. The next morning, needless to say, had been the most awkward encounter of his life. 

He tells Hanji to shut up, but they don’t listen, of course.  


“ – I mean, he is _gorgeous_ , of course, but that’s always been your type, the pretty ones –,”  


“Hanji!” 

Levi is sure that if looks could kill, Hanji would be sitting there dead. They do this annoying little mouth pop that they do every now and then and Levi understands that as _we’ll be coming back to this_ , and he frowns as they nudge a shot glass towards him, the questionable green liquid inside spilling a little over the top.  


It’s at that very moment, throwing caution to the wind and necking it back in one, that Levi knows he’s fucked.

…A fucking idiot, more like. It’s half two and the room is literally spinning. He’d hardly moved all night from where he’s sat, directly opposite Eren, and as a result he's probably necked at least nine vodka cokes (Hanji’s fault) and four shots of jager. They’ve barely exchanged more than two sentences since they sat down, because Hanji has been chewing his ear off about the importance of early diagnosis of primary ciliary dyskinesia in children, and now Levi’s dangerously toeing the line between doing the sensible thing and ordering himself an Uber and straight up telling Eren that he’s the most beautiful human being he’s ever laid eyes on. If anyone wanted to know why Levi rarely drank, this was the reason. It was embarrassingly unbecoming, and if he wasn’t careful then he might never be able to show his face at work again. 

He mumbles something to Mike about needing a piss, not actually bothered whether he hears him or not, and hopes that he manages to escape without capturing the attention of too many of his colleagues in the process. The toilets feel as though they’re a million miles away, if only because he has to weave his way through a hundred sweaty bodies and not at all because it’s becoming increasingly difficult to put one foot in front of the other.  


Once inside the safety of the cubicle, Levi fumbles into the pocket of his jacket, searching desperately for his phone, slow hands finding everything but. He still has his pager in his pocket from being on call Wednesday evening, and the thing slips from his pocket before bouncing off the rim of the toilet seat and skidding away underneath the barrier of the next cubicle. 

Levi grimaces, swears loudly at no one, and vows to pick it up once he’s ordered his Uber. 

This is, unfortunately, easier said than done. The screen of his phone is almost too blurred to make anything out, but he soon realises if he closes one eye he can just about manage to tap his address into the search bar. It looks like his address (the shapes are familiar) and so with a little bit of faith he presses _confirm._  


Right, now for the pager. 

It’s further away than Levi had initially realised, and so he has to lean down pretty far to be able to grab it, enough so that his cheek is pressed right up against the cold plastic of the shoddy cubicle door. Finally, after some aimless feeling around, he finds it. Levi breathes a sigh of relief – hiccups, twice – and then stands a little too quickly. 

It’s all over faster than he’s even able to process.  


His head hits the corner of the tissue dispenser, and he’s out like a light.

*

“… Doctor Ackerman? Levi?”

Eren’s voice filters through the fog, coaxes him awake, just about. The lights are brighter than the sun and his head is pounding. 

Levi grabs wildly to the side, attempting to find purchase against anything to hoist himself up. What he does find is shaped suspiciously like a thigh. 

If it is, Eren says nothing. 

“Tell _anyone_ about this, Jaeger, and I will personally see to it that you only perform cataract surgeries for the next year.” 

He wiggles into a sitting position, and Eren is staring at him. His first move is to pat the back of his own head – no blood, at least. 

“I mean, I was considering ophthalmology as my speciality before peds –,”

Levi holds a finger up and Eren falls silent. He wishes this whole debacle had stopped there, but then just to drive the embarrassment home, he tries to stand and slips against the door frame. 

Eren catches him just in time, this dumb look on his face that makes Levi want to kiss him. 

“Hey, woah.” Eren guides Levi to sit on the lid of the toilet, and Levi wobbles. His head feels like a lead balloon, and he struggles to focus properly. Eren must notice, because he makes Levi follow his finger. “You hit your head on the way down?” he asks, voice gentle. Levi rubs the offending area. 

“I was trying to reach my pager.” 

Eren sits back on his heels, scrutinising Levi as though he really were a patient. It sets Levi’s skin on fire.  


“Y’know what, sir, let me take you in just to be sure, huh? Jean is on tonight, we can give you a drip for the hangover and do a CT.” 

The suggestion makes his stomach turn. (Or perhaps it was the alcohol… diagnosis unclear.) He curls his fist into Eren’s collar – there was no way this little doe eyed bushy tailed teenager was about to single handedly destroy the reputation that he’d spent the last thirteen years building from the ground up.

“No one is to find out about this, do you understand me? I’m going home.” 

Eren must have a death wish, Levi thinks, because he just offers this sympathetic smile. 

“I can do it for you. I’ve only had a few drinks, I could easily do a CT.”

“Practicing medicine under the influence? You’re fired.”

Eren’s laugh is as rich as caramel. Levi thinks, rather dumbly, that they should bottle the sound and use it as pain relief. Morphine is so last year. Perhaps if he were to get that fictitious one million dollar grant, he could engineer a way to harness it. “Yeah, sorry, sir, I don’t think you can do that.” Eren slings Levi’s arm over his shoulder, and Levi begrudgingly slumps against his side. “You could bring it up with the chief but I doubt you’d want him to find out that you were passed out in a toilet.”

“You little shit, you can kiss cardio goodbye –,”

“That’s fine, sir, I already chose peds, remember?”  


He’s fighting a losing battle, that much was painfully clear. Levi grunts a noise of vague disapproval and is aware of little else until Eren is manhandling him into the back seat of an Uber.

Time seems to be moving much too slow and much too fast all at once. 

He doesn’t even get the chance to thank Eren before the door slams shut in his face, and he takes that as a pretty good indication that he’s pissed off. 

He’s mentally berating himself in the back seat when Eren slides in next to him. 

Levi cocks an eyebrow. 

“If you won’t get a CT then I should at least stay with you tonight, make sure you aren’t concussed, or, y’know, choke on your vomit and die in your sleep,” Eren deadpans.

Levi closes one eye in an attempt to regard him properly. “You shouldn’t joke about death, you know.” 

“I’m not joking, sir. Right now I’m your Doctor and you’re going against medical advice. Let me monitor you, at least.” His tone is… firm? Hell, it might have been a turn on if Levi wasn’t so wasted.

“If you really were my doctor then you would realise that I’m not in any state to make my own choices right now.” It’s the weakest line of argument he’s ever produced, and when Eren gives him this stoic expression, it’s abundantly clear that it hadn’t come out the way that he’d meant for it to. 

“So you agree? You should go to the hospital?”

“Jesus, fine, alright – you can sleep on the couch.” 

It takes three attempts for Levi to unlock the door. He lives on the fifth floor in a block of apartments, not too far from the centre of town, and only a ten minute drive to the hospital. They were new builds, pretty fancy, and since Levi was rarely home, his apartment barely looked lived in. Save for all the cat hair, of course.  


Once inside, they are instantly greeted by Luna. She brushes up against the inside of Eren’s leg, and Eren is nothing short of ecstatic. “You have a cat!” he croons, leaning down to stroke her. 

“That’s Luna. She’ll almost definitely try to sleep on your head tonight. Good luck with that.” 

The hall seems much longer than Levi remembers, and he has to slide against the wall to guide himself to his bedroom. Eren seems too preoccupied with Luna to realise that he’s gradually getting lower as he goes, and Levi decides not to mention it. 

The next obstacle is literally everything else. Getting undressed seems like a mammoth task and so he settles for shucking off his jacket, before sitting on the edge of the bed and attempting to untie his shoelaces. It’s as he’s making a terrible job of it that Eren taps quietly at the door. It’s slightly ajar, and so he pokes his head around the corner.

“How’s it going, sir?” he asks, stepping over the threshold. Luna is curled up in his arms, and Levi’s heart stops for the briefest of moments, before pointing vaguely towards his feet. 

“I can do an aortic valve replacement, but I can’t untie this shoe.” 

Eren sets Luna down, and Levi thinks he might be trying not to laugh. “Alright, here we go.” 

He kneels at Levi’s feet, long fingers making a painfully slow job of something that should take only seconds. He’s close enough that Levi can smell his cologne, and it makes him dizzy. 

The words are out of his mouth before he can stop himself. 

“How old are you, Eren?” 

Eren leans back on his heels. 

“Twenty eight, sir.”

 _Twenty eight_. Levi snorts. “Brilliant. I have a child looking after me.” 

Eren smiles this stunning, lopsided smile that exposes his scar. It takes all of Levi’s might not to run his finger along it.

“I can promise you that it is my absolute pleasure,” Eren says. 

Oh, boy. Levi has to remind himself that he’s an practically an old man and cradle-snatching was generally frowned upon.

Levi hiccups. “Don’t you want to know how old I am?” 

Is this… is this flirting? Is this Levi’s half assed drunken attempt at flirting? Oh, the shame. 

Eren shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter.” 

Levi registers nothing else after that, only Eren’s hands under his head and the duvet being pulled up and around him, and he’s out once more.

*

When he wakes the following morning, he really wishes he hadn’t. His pager is beeping from inside his jacket pocket and the sound goes straight through him, enough so that Levi has to run from the bedroom to empty his stomach.

He trips over Luna on the way and the loud thud of him hitting the floor has Eren appearing from the kitchen.  


“Morning, sir,” he waves, and the thought of vomiting over his poor cat right in front of Eren has him throwing his hand over his mouth and scrambling to his feet. The bathroom door slams shut with a loud _bang._

The night before comes flooding back as he holds his head over the toilet. All the booze, hitting his head and passing out, Eren taking him home, and possibly the worst of all, his pathetic attempt at flirting. If Eren was a lesser man, he’d have already made his escape. 

Even after brushing his teeth twice, the taste of vomit still coats his tongue. 

When he opens the bathroom door, Eren is stood right there holding a cup of coffee.

“Jesus, Jaeger, you’re still here?” 

He takes the mug, trying and failing to hide his face by not looking Eren in the eye as he passes him. He feels like absolute death but perhaps work might distract him from the fact that one of his residents had to literally _put him to bed last night?_

“Well, you’re technically still my patient. Dare I ask how you’re feeling?”

Levi sniffs the coffee and resolutely decides against it, setting it down on his bedside table. “Look, Eren, I really appreciate your help last night, but shouldn’t you be at work?”

Eren leans against the doorframe, and looks like a model. Bastard. 

“It’s actually my day off, but I was gonna head in and get some time in the skills lab. You should be at work, though, you have a meeting at ten.” 

Levi glances at the time on his phone. Nine thirty. 

“What? No, I have a surgery at ten.”

“I did the OR board yesterday, and the chief asked me to get Dr. Ral to do your surgery because he needs the department heads together for a budget meeting.”

Levi shrugs. “Well then _undo_ it. Petra can forget it, I’ve been working on that case for six months.” 

“I mean, is surgery a good idea this morning?” 

Levi groans loudly, before finally retrieving his beeping pager from the pocket of his jacket lying carelessly on the floor, and hitting the silence button a little more aggressively than he had intended. “Okay, Eren, I really need to get a shower. Do you think you can show yourself out?” 

Eren nods, and Levi can’t help but feel guilty. He knew the kid was only trying to help but with no where to run with Eren just there, the mortification was setting in fast.  


“Sure thing. Maybe I’ll see you at work.” 

Levi hears him bid goodbye to Luna, and moments later, the front door closes behind him. 

Well, if Eren ever liked him before, he certainly didn’t now.

*

Levi storms into the boardroom, letting the door swing shut behind him. Erwin greets him with a smile and looks absolutely nothing like he’d been out till three o clock in the morning. The department leads stare at him like he’d spontaneously grown another head. 

Except Hanji, they’re beaming at him from across the table. They wave enthusiastically and mouth, “what happened to you last night?” but Levi decidedly ignores them and their sly wink.

“Why are you reassigning my surgeries?”

Erwin blinks. “Good morning to you too, Doctor Ackerman.” When Levi only stands there with his arms folded over his chest, Erwin sighs. “Levi, this meeting has been set for two weeks, you knew that. Besides, Petra’s more than capable.”

“I know she is. That’s not the issue. I’ve been working on this case for months.”

The other surgeons squirm. Mike raises his eyebrows into his coffee. He looks like shit, and that gives Levi a little comfort. 

“And Petra can finish it for you.”

Levi steps further into the room. The air con is set to freezing and it only adds to the overall chill of the atmosphere, but Levi supposes it’s to help with the alcohol sweats. “That’s bullshit and you know it. She can take my place here and fill me in later.” 

Sighing, Erwin pushes back from the table. “That’s not how it works.” 

Mike is rubbing his temples and Levi prays to god that he’s suffering just the same as he is. Secretly hopes that his stubbornness this morning only adds to the headache. 

“Then _make it_ how it works. That’s what you do, isn’t it?”

Erwin lifts his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose.  


“You’re a lead attending, Levi. That comes with more than just surgery.” Erwin taps his pen against the tabletop, as if to illustrate his point. “You need to delegate, trust your team. You need to learn to take a step back.”

Levi isn’t sure what makes him say it. The second the words are out of his mouth, he’s instantly regretting it.  


“Oh, well, you’d know all about stepping back, wouldn’t you?” 

It’s like a knife right to the gut, Levi can tell, because Erwin flinches. It’s a flicker across his face, the sudden tension in his shoulders. It lasts barely a second but Levi still catches it. As quickly as it had surfaced, Erwin regains his composure. 

“What is this really about, Levi?” Translation: _are you sure you want to do this here?_

His jaw tightens minutely. “Nothing. Just don’t change my surgeries without telling me. Those are _my_ patients.” He jabs a finger in Erwin’s direction, just to punctuate his anger. Might have been overdoing it a little but fuck it, in for a penny. Levi tightens his scrub cap, just in case anyone were still in doubt over his likelihood to be present at the meeting.

Erwin shakes his head, before awkwardly shuffling the papers in front of him.  


Levi doesn’t wait to be reprimanded.

*

At six thirty, Levi has fallen asleep in the attendings lounge. The surgery, although almost six hours long, had been successful – and the family had insisted on thanking him somehow. So now he’s sleeping face down at the table next to the biggest bouquet of flowers he’d ever seen and a handwritten note promising free dinner at the family restaurant. He’s dreaming of embarrassing himself in front of beautiful men when Erwin jolts him awake by clapping a hand over his shoulder. 

“I see your CABG went well?” he says, gesturing toward the flowers. 

Levi blinks the bleariness away, pushes back from the table. He only hums in agreement. He knows Erwin was here for some sort of berating, and frankly, he was in no better mood for it than he was this morning. “This is the attendings lounge, and last time I checked, you weren’t an attending.” 

Erwin drops in to the chair immediately facing Levi. “No, I’m just the guy in charge of you all.” He smiles, and Levi frowns. 

“If you’ve come looking for an apology, you’ll be sorely disappointed,” he tells him. 

“Hah.” Erwin laughs. “I’ve known you long enough to not expect an apology when you think you’ve done nothing wrong.”

Levi taps his finger obnoxiously against the ceramic mug in front of him – the coffee had long gone cold, he’d only managed a maybe a quarter before he’d fallen asleep. He thinks he drinks so much of the stuff these days that the caffeine barely has an affect anymore. 

“I saved a woman’s life. I fail to see how that’s doing something wrong.” 

“Of course you did, being a stubborn asshole doesn’t lessen your surgical ability.” 

He knows exactly what Erwin’s getting at. He doesn’t dislike Erwin; quite the opposite. After the break up they had managed not only to maintain a civil relationship for the benefit of work, but to some degree, Levi supposes, a sort of friendship – but as much as he hated to admit it, he’s still bitter. It pays to make him suffer on occasion; he knows Erwin will let him get away with it out of guilt. Erwin had hit the nail on the head: he is a stubborn asshole, but Erwin had a history of just being an asshole. 

“I won’t bother telling you that your behavior this morning was out of line. I’ll put this one down to a stinking hangover and lack of sex.” Erwin smirks at Levi and Levi rolls his eyes.

“Not you, too. Been talking to Hanji, have you?” 

Why was everyone in this hospital so interested in his sex life? Levi gulps at the cold coffee just to have something to do with his hands, and grimaces. 

“Like it’s not glaringly obvious,” teases Erwin. 

“Oh, fuck off.” The legs of the chair scratch against the floor as he gets up, flipping Erwin off. He takes the mug to the sink and pours the coffee down the plughole, before setting to work on the washing up. He mentally makes a note to send out a memo to all the attendings to clean up after themselves because he isn’t a fucking dishwasher, and this is the third time he’s done it this week. The water runs cold and it’s not till the first dregs of hot start to come through that Erwin speaks again.  


“Really, though, Levi. Are you alright?”

“Jesus – yes, Erwin, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know.” Erwin shrugs. “Sometimes I worry about you being alone all the time.” 

Levi snorts. “That’s not your job anymore.” 

“Is that what this is about? Because it seems like you’re newly pissed off at me all over again.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Erwin, you won’t fit back through the door.” 

Erwin laughs. “Alright. Then what is it?”

Levi lets the plate that he’s scraping hit the drying rack a little too hard before he spins around. “Well, fuck, I don’t know – you _did_ pull a number on me. Has it ever occurred to you that it might be the reason why I don’t bother with anyone anymore? I have no desire to get in your pants ever again, but even if I _wanted_ to try with someone else, I can’t forget you just binning me off like a fucking used condom, so if everyone could stop sticking their noses into my business that would be great.” 

Erwin opens his mouth to speak, and then shuts it again. Levi is taken aback by his own candidness, and ends up leaning against the basin, staring blankly at the suds. As if the last almost twenty four hours hadn’t been embarrassing enough. 

“I know. I’m sorry –,”

“—I know you’re sorry. This isn’t your problem, it’s mine.” Levi tears the marigolds from his hands. “Try not to lose too much sleep over it.” 

He abandons the washing up, fight or flight kicking in and telling him to run. The room feels like it’s closing in on him, the way it had done with Eren this morning, and it’s only a matter of moments before Levi has gathered his things. He can’t help but feel utterly ridiculous as he struggles out of the door with the bouquet of flowers – it wasn’t like he wanted a dramatic exit but he definitely wasn’t making one. A couple of the chrysanthemums skim the door frame on the way out, leaving a trail of yellow petals behind him.

*

Eren’s left his phone number in Levi’s locker. 

_Might be destroying my career here but im shooting my shot anyways. eren :-) p.s i had fun last night!_  


Levi reads it three times over, and then twice more at home.

_”I had fun last night”?_

If there were any way of expressing whatever was happening in his brain, Levi could only describe it as a series of never ending question marks. He had fun last night, what, scraping Levi off of the floor? 

He cringes inwardly. Maybe it was a joke? It’s possible that Eren had blabbed to one of his friends and the residents were playing a prank on him, because there’s no way that Eren himself had left the note – but then Eren did say the interns were terrified of him, so if that fear extended to the residents, would they really have the nerve to pull this off? 

Levi promises to steal one of Eren’s charts tomorrow to see if the handwriting matches up.

*

“Please stop talking.”

“But uh – Doctor Zoe said I should, uh –,”

“You can tell Doctor Zoe that I’m busy.”

Levi’s hunched over a virtual demonstration of a pair of lungs, fingers performing a theoretical operation. 

“They – need a consult –,” 

“Then why don’t they page me?”

The intern – Doctor Braun – goes pale. 

“Because you ignored their last three pages.”

Levi looks up. “If I come downstairs and they need anything other than a consult I will make sure that you never see the inside of one of my ORs again.” 

Braun is backtracking faster than she had scurried into the room. “From the context I have – which is very little – I think they want to discuss the chief’s birthday night out.”

Levi gives a self satisfied harumph. “Which is exactly why I’m ignoring their pages, texts, emails, carrier pigeons, interns and everything else.”

“Understandable, sir.” 

Levi could be wrong but he’s sure she bows before she turns to leave. 

“Who did rounds on peds today, Braun?”

“Uh, Doctor Jaeger, sir.” 

Levi hesitates. “Bring me the chart for his last patient.”

“Suzie Richards? The retinoblastoma girl?” The uncertainty in Braun’s voice is obvious and Levi can only nod. Retinoblastoma, could it have been any further from his speciality?

“That’s the one,” he confirms. The virtual lungs have his full attention again but he doesn’t need to look at the intern to know she’s utterly lost, and rightly so, poor girl.  


“Uhh… okay?” 

Still, he needed full conviction. “Do I need to ask you twice?”

Her sneakers squeak against the tiled floor as she runs away. 

_Date: 16-04-2016  
Name: Suzie Anne Richards  
Date of birth: 01-12-2009  
Age: 7  
Diagnosis: bilateral retinoblastoma, suspect pineoblastoma…_

Levi scans the chart and feels a sinking feeling in his chest for two reasons. One: as utterly a moot and ultimately useless observation it is to make, life really is unfair sometimes. He doesn’t remember much from peds or neuro, but what he does know is that it’s not acutely common for children with retinoblastoma to develop trilateral retinoblastoma. That really is a kick in the teeth. Two: it _is_ Eren’s handwriting.

This is bad news because it means Levi now has to tackle the fact that Eren has a crush on him. It’s bad news because Levi really doesn’t want to. 

But alas, life is fucking unfair, and he’s far too old and too tired to get involved with a kid who has his whole career in medicine ahead of him, with a thousand opportunities and a thousand more potential bed partners, who will eventually just get bored of him.  


… But as he taps his pen against the chart, he thinks of Suzie and reminds himself not to be so dramatic.


	2. sugared pistachios & coffee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> initially this was only gonna be 2 parts but then i decided it was gonna be longer so enjoy!!!! im just gonna keep writing and see where it goes lmao
> 
> also sorry for how short this one is x

Hanji is jogging across the park, long coat flapping away behind them. They have a satchel over their shoulder, a binder under one arm and two costa coffees in a grey cardboard sleeve. “Leviiiii!”

Levi relents. 

They gradually come to a slow, before catching up with where Levi has stopped. Spring has arrived in all it’s pollenated glory and Levi sneezes in to his elbow just before Hanji hands over a Costa – “just a plain old Americano, I know you hate fancy coffee”, - and Levi smirks at her in gratitude. 

“You make me sound like the most boring human being on the planet. I’ll have you know I’m partial to a vanilla latte.” 

They sling an arm around his shoulders and Levi goes stiff, but eventually lets them bundle him into a hug.  


“Where have you been?” they demand, as the two of them fall in stride. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for two days.” 

“I know,” Levi deadpans. “I’ve been ignoring you.” Levi sips at his coffee – it tastes so much better than the stuff in the hospital (even if it was a ploy by Hanji to get him to talk) and Levi wonders why the hospital doesn’t have a proper coffee shop. Business would be booming with all the tired doctors running on the odd few hours of sleep they manage to steal in the on call rooms.

Hanji huffs and swats at him with their free hand. “Forty eight hours is too long to go without knowing what you got up to the other night. You and Eren conveniently disappeared around the same time and he won’t tell me anything!”

Levi can’t help but smile toward his feet. It’s nice to know Eren was keeping tight lipped about the whole thing. 

“There’s nothing to tell. We just got in the same Uber home. Sorry to disappoint, but there’s no hot sex to tell you about.” It wasn’t technically a lie, they did share an Uber, and there certainly wasn’t any sex. 

Hanji pouts. “You wouldn’t tell me even if there was.” 

Levi shrugs. “Stop asking, then.” 

If Levi knew Hanji well at all (which he did) he was certain the interrogation wouldn’t end there. He can see the cogs turning as they think up the next thing to say, and Levi counts the seconds before they’re fit to burst.  


“Well, if you don’t ask him out, you’re an idiot. Have you seen him? Boy looks like a Greek god, I can only imagine what he looks like underneath –,”

Levi splutters. “Woah, woah, okay, pervert. If anyone else hears you say something like that, there’ll be an inquiry. Anyway, you know we’re old, right? That would be cradle snatching.”

Hanji waves their hand dismissively. They reach the water fountain and stop, knocking Levi’s shoulder with her cardboard cup. “You’re not dead yet, Levi. And anyways, I don’t think an age gap is your real problem, is it?” 

A couple of children rush past them with nerf guns and Hanji waves at them. Levi allows the momentary respite to collect his thoughts. The sound of the water from the fountain placates him; and he finds that talking to Hanji about his dilemma isn’t as much like pulling teeth as he’d thought it would be. 

“You know what my problem is, Hanji.”

Hanji sighs. “You really think Eren will do what Erwin did?” Their eyes have gone all soft at the corners. The crows feet at the edges of them look a little less prominent when they aren’t smiling. All of a sudden, Hanji is as gentle as they are with their tiny patients.

“Hanji, Erwin broke up with me over the job. He ‘didn’t want our relationship getting in the way of his opportunities’. I mean, worked for him, didn’t it? He’s chief now, and I’m the guy who got burned. Eren’s a resident, he’s young. I don’t know where his career could take him and I’m sure as hell not about to wait around to be binned off again.” 

Hanji kisses their teeth. Levi watches their eyes drift toward the fountain. “So you never want to love again? To be loved?” They quickly turn their focus on him again, eyeing him over the lid of their coffee as they take a sip. 

“It’s just…” Levi brushes a hand through his hair. “It’s not high on my priority list right now.” 

“Wallowing doesn’t suit you, Levi.”

The accusation goes straight through him. “Being a judgmental ass doesn’t suit _you_.”

There’s silence from the two of them as they ogle each other, enveloped by a quiet which is only punctuated by the general commotion of the park. All of a sudden, Hanji laughs. “Not to get too deep, Levi, but you have to stop being mad at the world because Erwin was a dick. I know he hurt you –,”

“It was humiliating! He ended it and then made it my fault by suggesting our relationship was holding him back. You know what won’t screw me over like that? Work. So I won’t apologize for refusing to give someone the opportunity to treat me like that again.” 

Hanji frowns. “There’s more to life than surgery, Levi. And anyway, who wants to be lonely for the rest of their lives?”

“Christ, does everyone think I’m a lonely, sad, sexless loser?” 

“Listen to me.” Hanji places their coffee and binder down, then grabs Levi by the shoulders. “You are Levi Ackerman, the best cardiothoracic surgeon in the country. Eren thinks you’re hot shit. Not only that, half the hospital thinks you’re hot shit. I could name at least five people right now that would totally shag you. So even if you’re not ready for a relationship, just get laid. Please. If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for the rest of us. Who knows, it might open doors that you aren’t expecting.” They kiss Levi on the cheek, and Levi rubs at the offending area. “I care about you very much, I only want you to be happy.” 

“Yeah, yeah – I know. Don’t you have a toddlers nose to wipe somewhere?” 

Hanji collects up their belongings, before starting to jog toward the exit up to the hospital. “All part of the job!”

“Oh, hey, are you on call tonight?” Levi calls. Hanji turns around, long ponytail smacking them in the face as they go.

“My night off – why, you need me to go see Luna?”

Hanji – for all their annoying habits and tendencies to overshare – is a really good friend. Levi makes a mental note to tell them more often. “Yeah, I don’t want her to get lonely.”

Levi thanks them before chucking over the keys to his apartment. Hanji catches them, drops them, and then bends down to pick them up, all before displaying them proudly and hurrying down the cobbled path.

*

Later that same day, Levi hears his pager beeping in his pocket.

“Artlett, would you check that for me, please?” 

He’s right in the middle of a bronchoscopy, navigating the long thin tube down the throat of a young man. Armin blanches, like Levi had just asked him to get undressed there and then. After a moment of hesitation, he gently slides his hand into Levi’s leg pocket. 

“It’s the ER, sir,” he tells him. 

“Alright, I’m almost done here.” 

Armin stands there, fixated on the screen in front of them but still holding the pager awkwardly in the palm of his hand. Levi sighs. “Don’t be shy, Artlett, put it back.”  


He thinks he hears the young Doctor swallow. It’s as Armin’s delicately trying to slip the electronic device back into Levi’s pocket when Levi gasps, making him jump. The pager hits the floor (Levi ignores the de ja vu) and Armin chases it under the table. 

“There it is. That’s what we’re looking for,” announces Levi. 

The screen depicts the pink and fleshy insides of the young man, and an ugly mass clinging to the large airway of the lung, angry and parasitic. 

“Bronchial adenoma.” He sighs, shoulders slumping. "Artlett, you can finish up here.”

Levi allows Armin to take the scope, slowly unfurling his fingers from the thin tube and stepping back from the table. 

It’s just before he leaves the room that Levi stops at the door. “Who was it that paged?” he asks. He’s not sure why, because it’s never mattered before, but something tells him that he should brace himself. Eren’s face flashes against his minds eye like warning, call it intuition, or a gut feeling – he just knew his luck where avoiding the resident was concerned had to be coming to an end. 

Actually, if he’s honest, it _had_ mattered once before. Back when he and Erwin had just broken up, getting a page from him used to make his stomach turn. 

“Dr. Jaeger, sir,” Armin tells him.

Fantastic. (Perhaps if the surgery thing stopped working out he should pursue a career as a psychic.) Levi had managed to steer clear of Eren since the day he all but kicked him out of his apartment, whether that be by happy coincidence or not. Except now Levi will have to deal with the fact that he ignored Eren’s invitation to call, and that as a result Eren might be a little standoffish. If the roles were reversed, Levi knows he’d be embarrassed at the very least.

The ER is a hive of activity this morning, and Levi heads toward the nurses station. 

“I was paged for a consult,” he tells the man behind the desk, who barely looks up before directing him toward bed seven. Levi thanks him before crossing the ER.  


He spots Eren, perched at the end of the bed. He looks like he belongs there, sat playing toy cars with a little kid who looks absolutely overjoyed to be getting so much attention. 

“What do we have?” Levi asks, and Eren turns to face him. He hands the toy truck back to the little boy, who takes one look at Levi and hides his face. A mop of brown curls fall over his hands, and Eren places a comforting hand on his shoulder. 

“Dr. Ackerman. Luca Marcinelli, four years old, mum brought him in because he’s presenting with a persistent cough and complaining of chest pain.” He then turns his attention to Luca. “Hey, buddy, this is my friend, Levi. Is it okay if he has a listen to your chest?”

The little boy shakes his head vehemently and Eren crouches down to his level. “Aw, Luca. Just think how cool your friends at school will think you are when you tell them you got to come to the hospital, huh?”  
The little boy doesn’t budge, curling even further into himself. His shoulders shake as he coughs into his elbows. 

Levi looks to Eren. “Where’s mum?” he mouths, and Eren holds his fingers to his mouth in a V shape, which Levi understands to mean _smoking a cigarette._

Levi crouches the other side. Kids weren’t exactly his area of expertise but there was one move that they always seemed to fall for. “Tell you what, Luca. If you let me listen to your chest, I’ll let you listen to mine, just like a real doctor. Deal?” 

The child peeks at Levi through his fingers. Gradually, he unfurls, sitting up straight against the pillows. Levi can _feel_ Eren smiling at him. 

After pressing the stethoscope over his tiny chest, Levi goes over history and symptoms with Eren. The young doctor manages to communicate everything to Levi as clearly and efficiently as one could expect whilst also effortlessly entertaining the little boy, pulling faces and running a toy ambulance up and over the length of his legs. Before they are finished, Levi brings himself to the boy’s level, and as promised, he gently places the stethoscope to his ears. The child is thrilled, moving the scope over Levi’s chest the way he’d seen his doctor doing only moments before.

“Could be a respiratory tract infection but I want a CT just to be sure,” Levi tells Eren whilst the child is occupied. Eren nods, clicking his pen against the boy’s chart. He’s only writing for a moment, but it’s long enough that Levi starts to feel guilty for staring. His long lashes sweep across his cheeks and Levi watches his Adams apple bob in his throat as he swallows. 

“Want me to page you when it’s done?” he asks all of a sudden, looking back up. Levi looks anywhere else and nods.

Once Luca is satisfied, Levi wraps the stethoscope back around his neck. “Yes, page me when it’s done.” Then, he directs his attention back to the child. “I’ll see you later, Luca, okay? Eren will look after you.” 

He digs his hands into his pockets and begins to walk away, but stops dead in his tracks when Eren says his name. 

Levi looks over his shoulder, and Eren is smiling at him. 

“I meant what I said, by the way,” he tells him. 

The noise of the ER fades into static and Levi bites the inside of his cheek. He’d never met anyone so brazen before, and it makes him feel a like a deer caught in headlights. 

Levi looks around the room, and then nods. “Noted.”  
His legs carry him out of the ER faster than his mind can process.

*

Levi still has the note from Eren tucked inside the pocket of his lab coat. Although he’d decided against using it, he’d not been able to bring himself to throw it away. Now, he stares at his phone, fingers hovering over the send button.

_To: Eren Jaeger  
We should talk. – Levi_

Hanji’s words from the day before echo in his head, and with a deep breath, he presses send. 

It’s about forty five minutes before he gets a reply, and the vibration in his pocket has him feeling guilty enough that he hides in a medicine cupboard to open it. 

_**16:27 eren jaeger [:** : you finally text, i thought u were ghosting me_

Levi reads the message over and over.

_**16:28 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD** : “Ghosting” you? I haven’t the faintest idea what that means._

_**16:28 eren jaeger [:** : i just thought you’d never text is all _

_**16:29 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD** : I sincerely hope you’re not on your phone whilst with a patient._

_**16:30 eren jaeger [:** : of course not, are u?_

Levi snorts at his nerve. 

**_16:30 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD_ ** _: Meet me in the supply cupboard opposite the ICU._

_eren jaeger [: is typing…_

Levi holds his breath. 

That had sounded far more suggestive than he had meant for it to. Eren stops typing without sending anything new and Levi’s heart drops. Perhaps he should have worded it differently? He only wanted to talk, but now Eren probably thought Levi was using him as a booty call. The only reason he was hiding in the supply cupboard, and had told Eren to meet him there, was because the hospital had eyes and ears all over it. There was absolutely no way Levi was risking this conversation out in the open, not if he wanted to keep it between the two of them.

Only minutes later, there’s a soft tapping at the door.  


Levi jumps, and then opens it. 

“Hello, sir.” 

Eren stands there like a lemon, and Levi pulls him inside by his collar. He shuts the door behind him, and Eren stands with his back to the door. 

“Funny thing you text. I was about to page you.”

Levi puts about a foot of space between them. 

“Luca Marcinelli?”

Eren sighs, which is never a good sign. “Yeah, CT shows inflammation on the lungs. I don’t think it’s an embolism, at least.”

“We’ll do a thoracentesis to rule it out. Could be pneumonia. If I’m not available then page Dr Ral.” 

Eren nods. “Yes, sir.” He stares at him, then, and Levi stands with his arms folded over his chest. “So… you asked me to meet you?” 

He expels the air from his lungs and digs his hands into the pockets of his lab coat. It’s now or never, he might as well draw the line. “Yeah.” He gestures between the two of them and says, “This can’t be a thing.” He says it as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world, but if Eren’s vacant expression and cocked eyebrow is anything to go by, it isn’t. “I’m an attending.” 

“Oh,” says Eren. “I see.”

Levi narrows his eyes at him in suspicion. “You do?”

“Yeah, Dr Zoe said you would either use that one or the ‘being too old’. I thought it would be the second one.”

Levi scoffs. “You’ve been talking to Hanji? I should have known. Can’t keep their nose out of my business.” 

Is… is Eren smirking?

"So I _am_ your business?” he probes. 

Since when did residents get so cocky? Since when did _Eren_ get so cocky? Levi swallows. It makes him feel a little too hot under the collar and he’s not sure if it’s Eren’s forwardness or the fact they’re bundled into a supply closet. 

“You said you ‘had fun’.” Levi’s tone frames it like an accusation, but Eren doesn’t miss a beat. 

“I did,” he agrees. 

Levi stares him down. “What did you mean?” 

This time, Eren blinks, regarding him blankly. “Is this a test?”

“Christ – no, it’s not a test.” Levi drags a hand down his face, the tension is his body draining a little as he leans against the shelving unit. “I’m just trying to get my head around it.” 

Eren steps forward. “Get your head around what, sir?”

“You know what I did the other day, Eren? I bought a set of reading glasses to help me see my phone. _That’s_ how old I am.” 

It feels as though somebody has sucked all the air from the closet because Levi’s chest feels tight under the weight of Eren’s gaze. He looks like he’s sizing him up. 

“Sir, I like you. That’s about as much as there is to it. I don’t care how old you are, or if your eyes are turning to shit. And, correct me if I’m wrong, but… I think you like me too.” 

He’s stepping closer and Levi puts a hand against his chest. “Don’t,” he warns. It’s an empty threat and Eren knows it. Fuck, he smells like a heady mix of fucking sugared pistachios and coffee. Levi shifts against the shelves, knocking a bottle of pain meds on to the floor. It lands and rattles around for a moment, but neither of them so much as look down. 

He can feel Eren’s heart beat beneath his fingertips, strong and rhythmic. He had meant to push him back, but now they only stand there, a few pregnant centimeters separating their bodies. Levi’s mouth has gone completely dry. Fuck, he’s even hotter from this close.

The moment feels loaded and, just as Levi heaves a shuddering breath, Eren crashes into him with a force that knocks the air from his lungs. 

Levi opens himself up without hesitation – throws his arms around Eren’s neck, lets himself be maneuvered away from the shelves and up against the wall. Eren slings a hand under Levi’s knee and guides his leg up to rest against his hip, allowing himself to slot right in, right where Levi feels the heat. It feels like everything Levi had done in his life had been leading up to this very moment and he sags against Eren with the gravity of it. Eren uses the opportunity to crowd Levi – his hand snakes up and around the back of his neck, and Levi realizes, a second too late, that Eren has full control. He’s trapped, completely and utterly surrounded, and that fact alone sends a lightning bolt of need straight through him. 

Eren’s lips taste like cinnamon and Levi feels drunk.  


It’s not until Levi’s pager beeps in his pocket that they allow each other a moment of respite. 

“Fuck – it’s the ER. I have to go.” 

Eren sighs, hot and breathless against Levi’s skin. “That’s okay. I should go prep Luca for the thoracentesis, anyway.”

He doesn’t let Levi go, though. Keeps him pinned there, leg held up against his hip, and kisses him again. Levi melts. 

“Shit, this is good, but I really need to go.” He eventually relents, tearing his lips from Eren’s and tilting his face toward the ceiling. Eren uses the opportunity to trail a series of open mouthed kisses down the side of Levi’s neck, and Levi bites back a moan. “Seriously, Eren.”

“Mmph. I know, you’re just so fucking hot. I’m going.”

True to his word, Eren steps back, readjusting his scrubs.

“I really fucking hope we get to do that again,” he says, and Levi can only stare at him, open mouthed and erection throbbing helplessly against his thigh. Eren smoothes his hair back down, before winking at Levi and finally disappearing back out into the corridor. 

His pager beeps again and he swears at the thing. It means they need him _now_ , so Levi is left with no choice than to awkwardly tuck his swollen cock underneath the waistband of his pants, and hope to God no one notices.


	3. where there's smoke there's fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part three!! 
> 
> intervals between chapters might be a bit random cus im writing this in between working and stuff
> 
> anyways thank you for the love so far and i hope you enjoy!!! (once again im sorry for any medical inaccuracies my speciality lies in optics not in medicine looool im trying my best)

That evening, Levi is hiding at the nurses station in the surgical high dependency unit. He buries himself in paperwork, trying and failing at every turn to banish thoughts of Eren, his mouth, his hands.

The pink flush in his cheeks and red swell of his lips when they’d kissed. 

He swallows and glances at the clock. He still has another nine hours of his shift; he’d offered to stay on tonight to monitor Mr. Rathor – his bronchial adenoma patient, who he’d performed a resection for only an hour ago – but hell, was it going slowly. Luca Marcinelli’s thoracentesis had shown he was suffering from acute pleurisy, but that still didn’t explain his persistent cough. As a result, he’d been admitted for further tests and observation, which meant it would be near impossible to avoid Eren when they were sharing the same patient. 

“Hey, grumps.”

Levi glances up from his paperwork to see Petra leaning over the desk. 

“Can I help you?” Levi deadpans. Petra huffs and places a cup of coffee and a bagel in front of him. 

“Always so rude, Ackerman. I’m being nice.” 

Levi thanks her, taking a bite of the bagel and leaning back in his chair. “Where did you get this?” he asks her. “Tastes better than the bagels they do in the cafeteria.” 

“I brought it from home,” Petra tells him, walking around the side of the nurses station and jumping to sit on the desk beside him. Levi raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t bring it specially for you,” she explains. “It was leftover from my lunch and I know you’re awful at remembering to eat. And, you know, almost all other human behaviors.” It’s his and Petra’s way of communicating their affection – backhanded compliments and nice gestures shrouded in insults. Levi smirks. 

“So,” she starts, swinging her legs. “Hows –,”

“Uh uh, nope. We’re not doing that.”

Petra pouts. “Doing what?”

“We aren’t going to start chatting about life. I’m far too busy trying to ignore it.” Levi returns his attention to the papers in front of him, and Petra huffs.

“So, same as always then? How predictable. Don’t you want to know what’s happening in _my_ life?” 

Levi snorts. “Do I have a choice?”

She tucks her hair behind her ear and sucks in a breath. She starts telling Levi about how she’d finally gotten her own place (she’d been flatting with the head of ortho for the past five years, and sleeping with him on and off) and now that she lives alone she misses the companionship. Levi tells her to start dating and she’s just as disgusted by the idea as he is. “Dating is for boring people,” she tells him, and Levi couldn’t agree more. Levi sometimes can’t help but think that if she’d been a man then maybe they would have been a match made in heaven. 

And then he’s thinking of Eren again, who most definitely _was_ a man, if the bulge pushed up against Levi’s groin had been anything to by. Levi flushes again, and by the time Petra’s finished updating him on her life, he’s wishing she had more to say just to keep his mind off the whole thing. 

His phone vibrates in his pocket and Levi goes stiff.  


_**21:09 eren jaeger [:** : can you come to the NICU? _

_**21:09 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD** : I’m very busy, so unless it’s to do with a patient, no. Which I know it isn’t otherwise you would have paged me. _

_**21:10 eren jaeger [:** : u texted back in about 10 seconds, how busy can u be???_

Levi fumes and waits five whole minutes before sending a reply. 

**_21:15 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD_ ** _: Are you this rude to the other attendings?_

_**21:16 eren jaeger [:** : only the ones i like ;) _

_**21:16 eren jaeger [:** : i made that sound like theres more than one, theres only you, im not collecting attendings or anything :/_

Levi’s throat goes dry. There’s only you. He’s sure Eren didn’t mean for it to sound so romantic but it makes Levi’s palms sweat. 

**_21:18 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD_ ** _: I’m flattered._

_**21:19 eren jaeger [:** : i am too! i cant believe u let me kiss u. u were either gonna reciprocate or have me fired, there was a lot at stake_

Levi rolls his eyes. 

_**21:20 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD** Why did you want me in the NICU? _

_**21:21 eren jaeger [:** nothing sordid, theres just a mega cute baby down here _

_**21:22 eren jaeger [:** : she was born at 28 weeks with gastroschisis ): _

_**21:23 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD** : Good thing she has competent doctors. _

_**21:24 eren jaeger [:** : was that a compliment????_

_**21:24 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD** : Don’t get used to it. _

The rest of the evening passes by slowly. Levi manages to put a dent in his mountain of paperwork, checks on Mr. Rathor, and even helps with an incoming trauma in the ER. It’s all pretty uneventful, which is usually a good thing, except now, when he’s trying so hard to keep Eren out of his head.

It’s impossible. The resident fogs his mind like a damn sickness and Levi is powerless to stop it. Each time he rounds a corner or opens a door he’s hoping Eren is there on the other side. 

He’s like a teenager with a crush and it’s embarrassing.  


At one a.m, Levi heads to the attendings lounge for coffee. It’s three floors down so he decides to take the lift, but when the doors open, his heart jumps. 

“Oh, well, hello. Did you finally decide to come and visit me and my cute baby?” 

Levi, without a millisecond of hesitation, steps inside and kisses Eren with enough force that his back hits the wall. Eren lets out a little noise of surprise but otherwise envelopes Levi as though he had been waiting for him. 

“God, how have I worked here this long without finding out what you taste like?” Eren breathes, and Levi responds by biting his bottom lip hard enough that Eren actually _growls._

There’s a flurry of hands. Eren slides his palms under Levi’s scrubs and Levi tangles his own into Eren’s hair, and for a moment they feel like a single entity. One beating heart shared between them, and a thousand tiny fires erupting at each point in which their bodies meet. 

Eren seems to have this way of draining all of the oxygen from the room and it leaves Levi gasping for air. Eren allows him no reprieve; keeps Levi trapped against his body with an iron grip in a way that makes Levi want to tear his clothes off. 

As the elevator dings signaling the next floor, however, they break apart in an instant. The two wordlessly put about three feet of space between them, enough so that when they’re joined by a scrub nurse, she’s stands almost right in the middle. She gets off on the next floor and Eren pins Levi against a poster warning about the importance of safe sex. 

“This is really unprofessional,” Levi tells him between kisses. Eren laughs, and then licks into Levi’s mouth in a way that draws a strangled moan from his throat.  
When the elevator dings for Levi’s floor, he pulls back and Eren relents. 

“This is me,” Levi tells him, breathless. “Attendings lounge. Because I’m an _attending_.” He smoothes his hair down and Eren cocks an eyebrow at him. 

“As if you’re really trying to put me off like you didn’t just tackle me into the lift.” 

Levi scoffs. Hates that Eren has a point, and more over, that he would do it again in a heartbeat. Having Eren’s lean body pushed up against his felt like everything he’d ever been missing. “I’m going to go and get a coffee and then I’m going to check on my patients. I do hope you’ve fixed that attitude by the time I get to Luca.” 

He turns to walk away but the doors shut in his face. Eren uses the opportunity to wrap a hand around Levi’s wrist and yank him back. 

“No you don’t,” Eren whispers. 

He’s absolutely right. 

Eventually, the elevator circles back to Levi’s floor. Levi pries Eren’s greedy hands away from him, much to Eren’s dismay. He sneaks one last look at the resident; he’s got a right dirty smirk plastered across his face and Levi only rolls his eyes before the doors finally close on him.  


Levi spends the rest of the night thinking about taking Eren apart piece by piece and it’s not long before the shame slowly starts to creep in like a fog.  


*

The good news is that further testing showed that Luca Marcinelli was suffering from congenital dilated cardiomyopathy, as well as a nasty case of pleurisy which had brought him into the ER in the first place. 

Levi smiles at the child’s mother. 

To clarify, this is good news because the outcome could have been much worse.

“What caused it?” the mother asks.

“Most of the time the cause is unknown. It can be down to inheriting a mutated gene, or a viral infection. There have even been studies to suggest that smoking whilst pregnant –,”

Luca’s mother gasps. “Are you suggesting I made my child sick?” 

Levi digs his hands into his pockets. That’s not what he’s saying, but it’s also not _not_ what he’s saying. If the shoe fits, as they say. “Not at all. Like I said, most of the time we don’t know why it happens,” he tells her. 

Eren clears his throat next to Levi. “With proper treatment and regular follow ups, Luca will go on to live a healthy life. Not to mention, pleurisy is common and usually goes away on it’s own without the need for medication. You don’t have to worry, Mrs. Marcinelli.” 

Mrs. Marcinelli side eyes Levi. “Thank you, Doctors,” she says, and Eren high fives Luca before they leave the room. 

The bad news?

The bad news is that Levi has had a whole day and a half since he and Eren kissed to wonder how the hell he was going to ask him out. In fact, he’s built it up so much that he decides the best course of action is to not ask him at all. 

He tries to make a quick escape down the corridor but the resident is calling after him. 

It’s not that he doesn’t like Eren – quite the opposite. He _really_ liked Eren, and that was problem. The reality of it leaves him feeling entirely too vulnerable, and even though Hanji may have had a valid argument when she accused him of being mad at the world over one man, old habits die hard and Levi’s habits were cast in wrought iron.

The whole hospital knew of his history with Erwin and even five years on it makes his skin crawl. He been utterly infatuated, more than he’d thought possible. The worst part is that he’d believed Erwin felt the same.  


The man spun a web of lies and Levi had been naïve enough to allow himself to get caught. Being dumped at a staff party only a week after telling Erwin he loved him – having the whole debacle being shoe horned into everyone else’s business – it had left a wound that Levi had spent a very long time trying to heal. _“I’m going to run this hospital one day and I can’t have anyone get in the way of that, not even you.”_ Levi had tipped an entire glass of wine down the front of his slacks. 

The thing that had made him so angry was the fact that Erwin couldn’t respect him enough to just admit he didn’t love him. It might have been easier to swallow than some weak, watered down excuse about success.  


Or perhaps it was that on some level, he believed that Erwin really _did_ love him. Perhaps it had scared him so much so that he ran, as though his feelings for Levi might hold him back. 

Either way, it was humiliating, and the thought of putting himself on the line again was terrifying.

This is exactly why avoiding Eren seemed like a better idea than actually biting the bullet and asking him out.  


He cringes and turns on his heel. 

“Yes, Dr. Jaeger?” 

Eren taps Luca’s chart against his leg. “Do you have a minute?”

“Never,” he cocks an eyebrow. “I’m a surgeon.” 

It’s half true – he’s actually on his way out but there could be a trauma at any minute. (Hopes something will come up, anything.) 

“Is that Dr. Ackerman for ‘I’m not actually busy but I want you to think I am’?” 

He’s smirking and Levi turns and continues in the other direction. 

“You’ve gotten too big for your boots, Jaeger. Dial it down a bit,” he says, glad that Eren can’t see his face. 

He’s loathe to admit it but the teasing is fun.

****  
****

Some hours later, he and Hanji are sat in his living room sharing a bottle of pinot and the love of Levi’s little black cat. (Actually, that last one isn’t really being shared, Hanji’s hoarding her like she was the last on offer multipack of Oreos on the supermarket shelf). 

“Eren was in a suspiciously good mood yesterday,” Hanji tells him over their third glass of wine. 

Levi scoffs. “Isn’t he always?”

Of course, they ignore him. “I think he’s got a big fat crush on someone.” They’re petting Luna, who digs her claws into the pillow Hanji has resting over their lap. 

“You also think that Andrew Garfield is the best incarnation of Spider Man.” 

The nearly empty bottle of pinot wobbles a little as Levi sets it down, after topping up Hanji’s glass until it almost topples over the edge. 

“Where there’s smoke there’s fire, my dear Levi.”

They’re concentrating on rubbing little circles into the hollows below Luna’s ears, her dark fur almost disappearing into the black fluff of the cushion, and Levi chews the inside of his cheek. They’ve got some sort of mindless rubbish on the TV; neither of them are watching but the background noise paired with the warm glow from the pinot lulls Levi in to a sort of daze for a moment. It seems his thoughts are entirely eclipsed by Eren, his stupid, beautiful face – and Hanji was hellbent on getting him to admit it. 

Eventually, Levi sighs, casting his gaze up toward the ceiling. “Yes, well. This is a fire I’m putting out.”  


The metaphor is weak and makes him cringe, (blames the wine) and Hanji shuffles to sit up a little where they’re sinking into the couch. 

“Levi Ackerman, as I live and breathe. Is this you admitting I was right?”

He waves them off. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. I’m saying whatever might be there won’t be for much longer.” 

It must be the answer they’re expecting because Hanji only blinks at him, expressionless. 

“You might just be the dumbest smart person I’ve ever met in my life.” They sip their wine and shake their head at Luna. “Your dad’s an idiot, isn’t he?” 

The audacity to involve the tiny feline leaves Levi spluttering. “Excuse me, leave my poor cat out of this.”

“As the only woman in your life, she should get an opinion.” Hanji moves to rest their glass against the tabletop, shifting slowly so as not to disturb the bundle of fur curled up in their lap. “Don’t silence her.” 

Levi smirks. “You’re such a pain in my ass,” he tells them. 

“Eren could be a pain in your ass, if you’d stop acting like a stubborn child.” 

Levi finishes his glass of wine. He’s already getting a little loose lipped so he decides against a refill and doesn’t give Hanji the satisfaction of acknowledging her little quip. “He’s suffocating. I don’t know how you can put up with him all day.”

“Well, astonishingly enough I don’t actually want to sleep with him. So, y’know, it’s easier for me.” 

The statement instantly injects a particularly unwarranted and vulgar image in Levi’s mind. He shakes it off and huffs. “Can we talk about something else? What’s happening in the world of peds?”

Luna stretches in Hanji’s lap and Hanji coos at her. “My dear, you don’t care about what’s happening in the world of peds. If it’s not a heart with no aorta or a spontaneous third lung, you’ve no interest.” 

Levi cocks an eyebrow. “A medical improbability but a fascinating thought nonetheless.” 

“Case and point. Get a life. Text Eren, right now, I know you’ve got his number.” 

Levi throws his hands up. “What on earth would I text him about? We aren’t exactly _friends_ , certainly not after he tackled me in a fucking supply closet.” 

Hanji’s eyes couldn’t get any wider if they tried. “You – I knew it!” They slide their hands under Luna to keep her still as they shimmy closer to Levi on the couch. “You snogged Eren in a supply closet! Was it super steamy? I bet he’s a good kisser –,”

“Correction, Eren snogged _me_. Also, snog, what are we, fifteen?” Levi drags a hand down his face and sinks a little lower into the cushions. “It was really hot and I’ve not stopped thinking about it since.” 

It’s both sweet and a little insulting how bowled over Hanji is at the prospect of Levi kissing someone.  


“Text him right now. Ask him to come over and get naked.”

“Uh, yeah, no thanks. I’ll think I’ll just ask him out like a normal person who’s not a sex obsessed creep.” 

Levi’s honestly a little glad Hanji’s here. They’re funny and brave and seem to radiate courage and God knows he needed some of that – in fact, he’s almost jealous. Very little fazed Hanji, and there was no setback large enough to dampen their spirit. It was admirable and Levi used to think that if he spent long enough in their company some of their more enviable traits might transfer by osmosis. 

_**21:42 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD** : A patient’s family offered me free dinner at their restaurant. They serve Italian. _

_**21:43 eren jaeger [:** : is that a proposition???_

_**21:44 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD** : If it was, would you say yes?_

_**21:45 eren jaeger [:** : hmmmm_

_**21:45 eren jaeger [:** : that’s a tough one_

_**21:45 eren jaeger [:** : im a very busy hotshot doctor u see_

Levi huffs loudly and displays his phone for Hanji to see.  


“Hah! You totally deserve that. He’s making you suffer. Good boy.”

_Dr Levi Ackerman, MD is typing…_

_**21:46 eren jaeger [:** : kidding!!! ofc i’ll have dinner with u _

_**21:47 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD** : Good. Friday at 7?_

_**21:47 eren jaeger [:** : as long as dr zoe doesn’t make me stay on the for the night!!_

Levi smirks. “Eren can’t work Friday night. Unless anyone’s actually dying.” 

Hanji salutes him, this devious look in their eyes. “The stars have aligned and I’m not getting in the way. He’s all yours.”

Levi swallows hard.

**_21:48 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD_ ** _: They won’t.  
_

*

The next couple of days pass in a blur. Levi hosts a mitral valve repair demonstration in the skills lab and scrubs in on a surgery involving a man who had taken a revolving saw to the chest. On Thursday, Eren seems to make is his personal mission to plague Levi’s mind at every possible opportunity. 

Levi isn’t sure how he does it but somehow he makes scrubs, sneakers and that bright pink headband look like something straight off the cover of Vogue. Levi asks him the need for the strange hair accessory and Eren tells him that the kids think it’s funny. He’s got four different types; the pink one that he wore in the supermarket, a yellow one adorned with baby ducklings, a lilac one with little love hearts and, (Levi’s personal favourite) a burnt orange one with little bear ears. “It’s a red panda,” Eren tells him, and apparently the kids go wild for it. 

He’s wearing it today and it makes Levi’s cheeks hot. 

They’re sharing a patient again; a fifteen year old girl diagnosed with cardiac angiosarcoma. It’s extremely rare in children and the girl had already suffered extensive chemotherapy. Levi would be opening her up tomorrow to resect as much of the tumor as possible before it spreads to her lungs, and Eren would be assisting. 

Prognosis for the condition was poor and they may only be buying her time, but they’d try their damndest to buy her as much as possible. The survival rate without resection was only a few months, and they had decided with the child’s parents that surgical intervention was the best option, even with the harrowing reality that she might not make it off the table. Without it, though, the cancer would undoubtedly spread and she would die anyway. 

For the sake of his own sanity and mental wellbeing, Levi has learned to push the thought of losing a patient to the back of his mind until the time comes. 

They were surgeons, not Gods. 

As such, it went without saying that being close to Eren in such a capacity would be more than manageable.  


It was in every other capacity that Levi struggled with.  


He’s hiding again, this time in the attendings lounge, when Mike tells him he’s acting weird and Levi tells him to fuck off.

“It’s true,” Mike is saying in between mouthfuls of egg and cress sandwich. “Everyone knows you’re weird anyway, but there’s Levi weird and then there’s this. You’ve usually made an intern cry by this time of the day.”

Levi bristles and blows air out of his nostrils. “mind your own business, Zacharias.”

The neuro surgeon throws his hands up in defense. 

“Alright! I wasn’t saying it’s a _bad_ thing. You’re just slightly less awful today, is all.” 

“Please don’t talk with your mouth full.”

Levi shoves his earphones in and drowns out all and any thoughts of dinner with Eren by picturing every movement he’ll make in tomorrow’s surgery. 

*

“Are you ready?” 

Levi smiles at the young girl – Evie Harrington. There’s a refined sort of fear in her eyes; she knows the reality of her circumstances. Evie is no stranger to being scared.  


She nods at him, and Eren squeezes her hand on the other side. 

“We’ve got you,” he tells her. 

She heaves a shaky breath and then the mask is placed over her face.

She’s out in no more than fifteen seconds.

He can feel Eren watching him. Studying him. It’s not unusual for a student to emulate the behaviors of their teacher and he’s definitely got that unnerving stare from Hanji. Hanji watches you like a hawk. Misses nothing, ever. 

Levi breathes hard through nis nose. 

“Ten blade.”


	4. dent in the armor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~ TW for the use of homophobic language in this chapter and generally uncomfortable content ~
> 
> this is a hot mess

The thing about life – it doesn’t make any sense, and it’s rarely fair. 

Being a surgeon and being human are two things which are not mutually exclusive, despite years of winning and losing. He feels every loss. Remembers every one.  


Levi tears the mask from his face and grips the basin until his knuckles turn white. The sound of the blood pounding in his ears makes him dizzy, and he breathes hard through his nose. Concentrates solely on keeping himself upright.

Eren’s voice is a siren through the fog and Levi blinks. Everything snaps back into sharp focus and he tries to shake the overwhelming sadness from his shoulders, and stands upright. Pretends that the weight isn’t pulling him all the way down like an anchor tied to his ankle, yanking him unforgivingly toward the ocean floor below. 

“… Are you okay?” Eren is asking, voice gentle, as though if he spoke any louder that Levi might shatter right there in front of him. 

Levi looks anywhere but his face. “I have to go and tell the parents.” 

Perhaps Eren goes to say something but Levi takes no notice. He’s out of there as quickly as his feet will carry him, leaving the door to swing sadly against it’s hinges.  


Evie Harrington’s mother screams and her father bundles her into his chest. Some doctors might tell you that informing a family that their child died on your table is simply going through the motions. Wading through the agony, and blocking out the emotional turmoil as best you can until the job is done. You’ve done it enough times that you can break it down into steps. As heartbreaking as it is, you have to remove yourself.

This is half true, for Levi. 

The difference is that Levi feels every minute detail. He’s present for it. The battle armor chips and dents a little more each time, before he sets to work on repairing it.  


Feel it, and move on, so you can be better for the next one.

_Feel it._

His feet take him straight to an on call room, where he bolts the door shut and sits on the edge of the bed. He has dinner with Eren in one hour. 

The idea seems so ridiculous after the resident had just witnessed him kill a fifteen year old girl, and Levi rests his elbows against his knees, head in his hands.

Breathe.

This time feels different.

This time, he _knows_ he made the wrong call.  


When he’d taken the case, had he done it because Eren had asked? 

No. There’s no possible way Levi ever would have agreed to operate on a patient who’s chances were slim just to get close to someone. 

He banishes the ugly thought from his head. 

Had he not been thinking straight? Did a child die because he was becoming incompetent? 

There’s a soft tapping at the door and Levi tears his hands from where they are buried inside his hair. 

“Dr. Ackerman? Are you in there?” 

Eren is relentless and Levi isn’t sure if it’s a good or bad thing.

It sounds like he might be sliding down the door and Levi knows any onlookers will be wondering what’s going on. As if he needed extra attention.

He doesn’t say anything, but gets up to unlock the door. Eren almost falls into the room.

Levi pulls him inside.

Eren opens his mouth to speak but Levi cuts him off. 

“I’m fine, Eren. Evie would have died soon enough either way, except I’ve just made sure it was sooner rather than later. I thought I could give her more time and I failed. So now I just need to feel that, okay?”

It’s verbal diarrhea and Eren presses his lips into a thin line. Levi stands there with a hand on his hip and the other on the back of his neck, nostrils flaring with each unsteady breath. 

“I know,” Eren tells him. Levi blinks. “I know. You did everything you could and it wasn’t enough. I know how that feels.” 

The already cramped on call room feels smaller than usual and Levi’s chest grows tight. 

“I should never have operated. I don’t know why I couldn’t see that at the time.”

Eren steps forward and gently pushes Levi until the back of his knees hit the bed. Eren tells him to sit down and Levi obliges. 

They sit there on the mattress together. Levi stares at his feet and Eren waits a whole minute before he says anything else. “I’m sorry, sir. I’m really sorry.” 

Levi rubs his palms together. The friction distracts him from the aching in his chest, if only a little. “Don’t be. You didn’t kill her, I did.” 

Eren’s inches closer. The candidness should have been enough to put some space between them but his resilience is astonishing. “I can sit here with you for as long as you want,” he whispers.

He appreciates that Eren doesn’t try and tell him he’s wrong. Still, his offer still drags this short, biting noise from the back of his throat. The de ja vu is not lost on him. “I’m not a child, Eren. I’ve done this enough times to be able to handle it myself.” 

Eren, however, is a much better man than he. 

“I know you can. I’m saying you don’t have to do it alone, if you don’t want to.” 

Levi bites the inside of his cheek. Eren smells like the inside of an OR, but it still makes his stomach flip. He turns his hands palm up in his lap. They’re perfectly still, as is often the case for a surgeon, but he can taste the unease as blood in his mouth, his teeth just breaking the skin of his cheek. 

He feels Eren shift a little closer, enough so that Levi can feel the heat emanating from his body. 

“The thing about surgery,” Levi begins, curling and uncurling his fingers, “is one day you’ll look at your own hands and you won’t see anything except the lives you saved, and the ones you took. A detriment of the job, unfortunately.” 

He turns to regard Eren, then. Looks at him properly for the first time since he finished the surgery, and notices that he looks just as tired as Levi feels. Death has a way of doing that to a person. 

“You can’t save everyone, sir. Feeling like this, it… it makes you human. You told me that yourself.”

Eren’s eyes glow bright green, even in the dim lighting of the on call room. The thought of spending an evening with him when Eren had just witnessed him fail so spectacularly is more than he can bear. 

“Listen,” sighs Levi, fingers skimming the bristles of his undercut. “About –,” 

“It’s fine.” Eren gives him the classic sympathetic half smile that people do when they feel sorry for one another. “I understand. Dinner isn’t important right now."

Levi wipes at his eyes and is mortified to find the back of his hand is wet. The emotional exhaustion is getting the better of him and he’s not sure exactly what he was going to suggest they forget about. Dinner, or the two of them in general. 

Either way, it’s not a conversation he has the energy for right now. 

He stands to leave, fight or flight settling in fast.  


His feet carry him to the door and he hesitates at the handle. Turns to say something, anything, but nothing comes. 

The truth is, he is messy, and Eren is uncomplicated.  


It feels wrong to take advantage of the simplicity, when he is anything but. 

The door clicks shut behind him and he all but runs to the attendings lounge to collect his things.

*

**_Sunday, 23/04  
13:24 Hanji Zoe ~saving lives, eating fries~ ^.^_ ** _: you’ve not been at work for two days, is everything ok? i heard about evie, im sorry :(_

_**15:12 Hanji Zoe ~saving lives, eating fries~ ^.^** : levi??? dont make me come over there_

_**17:02 Hanji Zoe ~saving lives, eating fries~ ^.^** : ur read receipts are on so i know ur getting my messages -.-_  


*

_**Monday, 24/04  
14:23 eren jaeger [:** : hey, i hadnt heard from u so just checking in…. you didn’t come to work so i was worried_

If there’s one thing that Levi is good at, it’s overthinking.  


It’s been three days since he lost Evie, and as such, three days since he cried in an on call room in front of Eren. Now he’s had time to think about it, he’s not sure he can ever look the resident in the eye again. It’s too much to face him and so he holes himself up in his apartment with Luna, ignoring the world at large. 

Eren is far too involved. What happened on Friday should have been enough to put him off, and yet it wasn’t. He’d said it wasn’t possible to be disappointed by Levi, and the level of his expectations, his _blind_ faith – it’s sends Levi spiraling into panic mode. 

_**15:09 Erwin Smith** : I understand you’re going through something, but you can’t just not come to work. I expect to see you back tomorrow unless you’re unable. If that’s the case, I’ll need you officially signed off. _

_**15:11 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD** : You mean like the time that Nile didn’t come in because of a hangover?_

_**15:14 Erwin Smith** : Don’t push your luck, Levi. You’re already on thin ice. _

_**15:15 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD** : I’ll be back tomorrow. _

__Levi scowls and shoves his phone in between the couch cushions. He feels a little guilty for his treatment of Erwin recently. The man had been right when he said that it seemed Levi was newly pissed off at him all over again.  
__

__It’s as though the idea of a liking somebody else had reignited all the feelings of hurt and betrayal; he was bitter and blaming Erwin for being too frightened to pursue anything new._ _

__Well, fuck him, anyway._ _

__Levi wonders, absently, if he might benefit from talking to a shrink._ _

__He banishes the idea as quickly as it had surfaced.  
To add to his misery (as though wallowing under a blanket in his lounge wasn’t enough), the weather outside mirrors exactly how he feels on the inside. _ _

__The rain is coming down heavier than it had done in months. Levi contemplates the appropriateness of this and lets the sound of the downpour rattling against his window send him in to a disturbed sleep, whilst Luna purrs obliviously against his side._ _

__

__Levi is shaken awake at eight o clock to a loud knocking at his front door._ _

__He jumps, and so does Luna, who leaps from the couch as though she’d just been electrocuted. Levi curses and tries to wipe the bleariness from his eyes._ _

__The night has rolled in; the moonlight spills into the lounge through the floor to ceiling windows, and the inappropriateness of the hour paired with the rhythm of knocking had been an instant giveaway. When he unlocks the door and his suspicions are confirmed, he swears under his breath, and immediately closes it again._ _

__Hanji is relentless._ _

__He knows as he’s walking back down the hall to the lounge that they’ll let themselves in and follow._ _

__They do, of course. Levi’s ass hits the cushions just as they round the corner of the couch, a face like thunder and arms crossed over their chest._ _

__“I’m fine, Hanji,” Levi starts, brushing his fingers over his undercut. “I don’t need you checking up on me.” It’s futile; Hanji simply stares at him, looking entirely like a person who had been scorned._ _

__“Really, Ackerman?” they demand. Levi raises a brow. Hanji saved calling him by his surname for when he’d really pissed them off. It didn’t happen often, but whenever it did, it meant they were serious. “You couldn’t text me back to let me know you were okay but you could reply to Erwin?” They tap their foot irritably against the floor and Levi frowns._ _

__“He’s my boss.”_ _

__“Since when have you ever cared about that?”_ _

__Touché. Still, Levi knew he’d been pushing the boundaries lately and as much as he was loathe to admit it sometimes, Erwin was still the chief. “He’s already pissed off at me for showing him up in front of the department heads. I’m on ‘thin ice’, as he put it.” He makes quotation marks with his fingers and scowls to display how utterly ridiculous of a notion this is._ _

__Hanji narrows their eyes at him, and Levi can tell they’re deciding whether or not to stop being cross. It isn’t long before they huff dramatically and flop down on the couch next to him._ _

__“Could’ve text your _best friend_ back,” they complain. “Not like I was worried about you or anything. You’re such an inconsiderate ass, Levi Ackerman.” They nudge his shoulder with theirs and Levi nudges them back._ _

__“Mm,” he muses. “You’ve told me on several occasions. Also, it’s only been three days.”_ _

__Hanji doesn’t miss a beat. “You’ve never not come to work for three consecutive days.”_ _

__It’s a fair point and Levi sighs. “I’m _fine_ ,” he insists. Hanji purses her lips. They’re wearing an expression that reads _do you really think I’m that stupid?_ _ _

__No, he didn’t. In fact, quite the contrary. Hanji is the most perceptive person Levi knows._ _

__They stare each other down for a long moment, and Hanji doesn’t even break eye contact to acknowledge Luna rubbing up against her leg. There’s no way in hell they’re going to break first, and so the foundations of Levi’s resolve gradually crumble in front of him like a house made of clay._ _

__If Hanji wanted the truth, they were about to get it. “Alright, fine. I made a mistake. I expect to have my failure on exhibition for everyone to dissect at the next M &M, and I needed to mentally prepare myself for the fact that not only did I make the wrong call that cost a person their life, but that all of my peers will learn how monumentally I screwed up.” Levi’s jaw tightens and Hanji sighs. Alright, so maybe he’s not exactly fine. Still, admitting it feels like pulling teeth. _ _

__Hanji sucks in a breath and then comes to sit next to him.__

 _ _“Alright, listen to me,” they say, tucking a loose tendril of hair behind their ear. “I would have made the same call. Evie Harrington hadn’t undergone _enough_ chemo for us to have believed that her body might not handle the stress of surgery and you know as well as I do that if we hadn’t operated then the cancer would have spread to her lungs. Her final months would’ve been a misery. You were trying to give her more time that she could actually enjoy.”_ _

__It feels too much like an out, as though he were shirking the blame. Levi shakes his head .“I knew she might not make it off the table –,”_ _

__“That is _always_ a risk, Levi. We know that.” They search his eyes, silently pleading for him to understand. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but this? This has to stop. You _cannot_ blame yourself for this. We can’t fix everything, no matter how hard we try. What have we always said, hm? Real surgeons are made in these moments. Accept your losses. Try and do better for the next one.” _ _

__Levi breathes hard through his nose. They’re quoting him directly and it’s a low blow because it’s true._ _

__Hanji’s searching his face for a response. Eventually, he nods. “I know.”_ _

__“Say it.”_ _

__“What?”_ _

__“Say that I’m right and that you shouldn’t be punishing yourself.”_ _

__Levi frowns. “You only really want me to say the first part.”_ _

__Hanji takes his hand and squeezes it. He feels the warm band of the ring he’d brought them for their thirty fifth birthday a few years back rub against his skin. They’ve always been into astrology – star-signs, moon signs, virgo rising Jupiter ascending mumbo jumbo, and often tells Levi that he’s a ‘whole ass Capricorn’, (whatever that meant). He’d never bought into any of it, but for Hanji’s birthday he’d given them a silver band decorated with a crescent moon and the zodiac symbol for a Virgo. Hanji has never taken that ring off since the day he gave it to them._ _

__“The second bit is still true, though.” Hanji smiles at him and then slaps their leg with a degree of finality. “Right, get dressed,” they instruct. “Let’s get you out of here.”_ _

__There’s a series of question marks floating above his head._ _

__“What?” asks Levi, blindsided. He watches them get up and walk theatrically into the hall with their nose in the air. Hanji is unbearable when they know they’re correct about something. Levi’s still staring at the door frame when they shout from the kitchen._ _

__“You heard me! I’m not arguing, get dressed.”  
_ _

*

Hanji has taken them to a new cocktail bar in the middle of town. It’s pretty; there are twinkling fairy lights entwined with fake ivy threaded through the rafters, an outdoor seating area with heaters, low hanging interior lights made from mason jars, and they have decorated with succulents in every possible corner. The tables and chairs look thrifted – no two the same, but each full of character. 

It’s incredibly quaint (not to mention _very_ millennial) and exactly the type of place Levi would have chosen. He compliments Hanji on having good taste (for once, he adds) despite his displeasure with being dragged out in the first place. 

They select a table towards the back near the display of mismatched hanging macrame planters. Hanji orders a long island ice tea and, despite a well stocked bar with an abundance of choice, Levi orders a whiskey and coke. Hanji berates him for it, giving Levi unwelcome flashbacks to Erwin’s birthday night out a few months back. He cringes inwardly and vows never to let himself get in such a state ever again. 

Levi is nursing his ‘old man’s drink’ when Hanji makes this little noise of surprise. It pulls Levi from his daze, and when he looks up, Hanji is looking entirely too happy as they stare unblinking at the screen of their phone. Levi eyes them suspiciously over the rim of his glass. 

“What are you looking so pleased about?” he probes, gently placing his drink back on the coaster. Hanji looks up at him, the reflection of the mason jar lights bouncing obnoxiously off of their lenses. It makes them look even more erratic than they already did with their hair piled into a bun atop their head with a bright purple biro stuck straight through the middle.

“I treated a little boy with horrible scoliosis a few months back,” they say. “Inserted rods until he’s old enough for me to straighten his spine. Anyway, his mother just posted this on Instagram.” 

She turns her phone to show him a picture of the boy chasing another child. Both of them are laughing and the child’s mother has tagged Hanji’s business page in the caption:

_helenanowacki76 : jacob and magda playing in the garden…. Priceless… i cant remember the last time they were able to play like this.. thank you so much @drhanjizoe for giving jacob his childhood back… you truly are a hero.. @trostmedical #scoliosis #notallheroeswearcapes #countdowntosurgery_

Levi smiles, tips his head gently toward Hanji. 

“Good work, as always,” he compliments. It’s a simple procedure that Hanji could probably do in their sleep, and so their unabashed pride nonetheless is all the more wholesome. It went to prove that every single patient, every surgery – no matter how complex, regardless of the success rates – each one left it’s mark. Hanji is the perfect example of a good Doctor. 

“Is this the child that said dinosaurs aren’t cool?” 

Hanji laughs and chokes a little on their drink. “Much to Eren’s abject horror, yes. Jacob prefers YouTube and conspiracy theories.” 

“Ahh, of course. A true Gen Z. I doubt he’s ever even heard of the cinematic masterpiece that is A Land Before Time.”

Hanji chokes a little on their drink. “Spoken like a true elder millennial,” they laugh. 

People say that laughter is the best medicine. Whilst this is medically short sighted, there is _some_ truth in it. Laughter stimulates endorphins and alters dopamine and serotonin activity, and Levi finds that laughing with Hanji does in fact lessen the weight of the angry black smog that hovers above him, if only a little. 

It’s nine thirty and Levi has been nursing the same drink for the last hour. Hanji, on the other hand, has gone through three and a half long island ice teas. They get silly and giggly when under the influence, and Levi makes the decision to live vicariously through their mirth this evening. 

It’s sweet because Hanji is telling him about their loft conversion, and how they have plans to turn it into a mini library of sorts. They envision reupholstered faux leather chairs, low hanging ziva glass pendant lights, and oakwood bookshelves. Hanji is an avid reader and it’s actually how the two of them ever got talking in the first place. Levi had been reading Margaret Atwood’s _The Handmaid’s Tale_ in the canteen one lunch time, only two months or so into his internship – and Hanji had all but sprinted up to his table and asked how he felt about Atwood’s depiction of feminism and gender significance.

The rest, of course, is history. 

They are discussing overrated literary classics (cough _Of Mice and Men_ cough) when suddenly Hanji’s eyes grow wide. They’re looking past Levi and Levi turns in his seat.

"What are you…” 

His eyes scan the entrance to the bar and his heart skips a beat. 

He turns back to Hanji with fire in his eyes. “Tell me you didn’t –,”

Hanji’s shaking their head vehemently. “I didn’t do anything! It’s a complete coincidence, honestly.” They’re waving enthusiastically and Levi wonders if he can shrink into his chair any further. 

“Eren!” 

Welcome to Levi’s Hot Mess of a Life. 

Levi finishes the last dregs of his whiskey and watches Hanji’s eyes as they follow Eren, and before he knows it, the resident is standing beside their table.

“Fancy seeing you guys here,” Eren chimes, and Hanji squeaks. Levi just about manages to smile at Eren, and that in itself feels like a crime. 

Hanji’s either completely oblivious to the awkwardness, or they’re choosing to ignore it because they enjoy seeing Levi suffer. “Small world! What brings you out this evening?” they ask, and Eren gestures toward the bar.

“My sister owns the place.”

Levi and Hanji look in the direction that Eren points. Turns out the woman behind the bar that had served their drinks had been Eren’s sister. She waves at them, her arm covered in tattoos and her wrist adorned in an assortment of silver bangles. You couldn’t have guessed they were related – shes pale with long, jet black hair, whilst Eren is olive skinned, his hair brunette with hues of gold and burnt orange. 

Levi silently thanks his lucky stars that they hadn’t been discussing the resident this evening. 

Eren brushes a hand through his hair – it’s styled back again, and Levi instantly grows hot under the collar. 

“Yeah, a new business venture. She’s only been open a couple of weeks so I thought I’d show my support. Didn’t expect to see you here, though?” he poses it as a question but any possible explanation escapes Levi, and so instead he simply clears his throat.

“I’m going to grab a drink. Hanji, same again?”

It’s supposed to be an excuse to collect his thoughts away from the table, but now he knew Eren’s sister was working the bar, there didn’t seem to be much room for that. Still, it would give him space to breathe away from Eren. 

When he gets to the bar, Eren’s sister grins and extends her hand. “You must be Dr. Ackerman. If I’d have known it was you and Dr Zoe, your first drink would have been on the house.” She’s very beautiful, and Levi can see that up close she shares Eren’s sharp edges and soft eyes. 

Levi shakes her hand. “Yes, that’s me. And your name?”

“Mikasa. Eren’s constantly talking about all the gorgeous hotshot doctors he works with, and I’m beginning to understand what he means.” She puts a hand on her hip and winks. “Maybe I should have gone to med school too, huh?”

Alright, so, did unbridled confidence run in the family? 

Levi laughs. “It’s not all glamour, I can assure you.” 

“Oh, you don’t have to convince me. Just last week Eren was telling me how somebody vomited all down his scrubs.” She leans against the back of the bar and gestures at the bottles around her. “So, what can I get you?” 

Levi sighs, and then looks back towards his table. Hanji and Eren are laughing, and then Eren turns to look at Levi, too, meeting his gaze for the briefest of moments. Levi swallows and feels his body tense. 

Nope. Not tonight. His resolve is firm as he fishes the money from his wallet. 

“Just a coke for me. But Hanji will have a long island ice tea, and uh… Eren –,”

“Oh, don’t worry, I know what Eren will have. Damn boy and his Desperados. It’s cheap and easy. Ha! Bit like him, actually.” 

Levi pretends he doesn’t hear the last part, and breathes heavy through his nose as Mikasa gets to work preparing the drinks. 

It’s not long before she sets them down in front of him and slides the note that he’s placed on the bar back over to him. “This one’s on me,” she smiles. He thanks Mikasa and balances the coke between the bottle and the ice tea, and turns to walk back to the table when he comes face to face with a man towering at least five inches above him. 

“Need a hand with those?” 

He’s got short blonde hair, an angular face and piercing blue eyes. He’s staring at Levi as though he were something to eat. 

“No thank you. I’ll manage.” 

The man puts his arm out as Levi steps forward. “You look like you’re struggling.” 

Levi blinks. He smells overwhelmingly like cheap aftershave. “Perhaps you didn’t hear me. I said no thank you.” 

They stare each other down for a moment, before the man drops his arm and lets Levi pass. 

As strange interactions go, that one was up there with the most uncomfortable. 

When he reaches their table, Hanji raises an eyebrow. 

“What was that about?” they ask, and Levi shrugs. 

“Just some knucklehead trying to assert his macho-ness over me,” Levi tells them. Eren looks over his shoulder at the tall blonde, who has migrated back to his own table. Otherwise, he says nothing, and Levi isn’t sure what to make of that. 

Eren sits with Hanji on the one side of the table and Levi sits across from them, listening to them talk over patients and occasionally weighing in. Eren doesn’t seem to look at Levi very much, and Levi wonders if he’d gone too far by ignoring him since they lost Evie. Perhaps Eren had wanted to talk about it and Levi had stripped him of that opportunity. Or maybe he’d simply wanted to be there, and Levi had denied him that, too. 

Either way, he was giving Levi absolutely nothing to work with, and perhaps that was for the best. 

He deserved the cold shoulder, if nothing else. 

They’re discussing treatment methods of juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia when Mikasa walks up to their table, drink in hand. Levi’s almost glad for the interruption; he’s found himself to be stealing one too many glances at Eren for the last half hour. There was something about the way he looked tonight; plain black tee with sleeved that stopped just over his biceps, tousled hair, and this lavish silver watch on his wrist that glints perfectly against the mason jar lights. He looks _expensive_ , and Levi hears Hanji’s voice in his head telling him that it's classic Aries behavior. 

“Some guy ordered this to your table,” Mikasa tells them, placing it down in front of Levi. She pats Eren on the shoulder. “Sorry, bro, maybe he’s not into tall dudes. Oh – sorry, Dr Ackerman. Didn’t mean anything by it.”

Levi eyes the drink dubiously, as do the rest of them. 

“Who ordered this?” he asks, and Mikasa points, leaning on Eren’s shoulder. 

“Muscle head, over by the door. Said to give it to the guy with the undercut.” 

They all look to where Mikasa is pointing, Levi has to turn in his seat – and the guy from the bar is staring straight back. He tips his drink toward Levi and smirks. 

Levi snorts. Apparently, he’d not taken the hint. “Tell him thanks but no thanks. I’m not drinking tonight.” 

What he _should_ have said was that he wasn’t interested, and perhaps Eren thinks so too, because Levi catches the way he widens his eyes a little as he sips his drink.

Hanji, obviously, is overjoyed. “Why not? He’s cute, not to mention the fact that he’s ripped. I thought you liked ‘em big?” 

Eren splutters and wipes his mouth. Levi cringes. 

Thanks, Hanji. Things are going from bad to worse and Levi pushes the drink away from him. 

“Look, just – I don’t want the drink. But thank you for bringing it, Mikasa, I’m sure Hanji won’t let it go to waste.” 

Mikasa shrugs. “Alright, suit yourself.”

She smiles at them and walks back toward the bar. 

Hanji takes the drink and sips at it suspiciously. 

“A vodka coke,” they declare, nose twitching in distaste. They slide it back to the middle of the table. “His good taste in men doesn’t extend to his taste in alcohol, unfortunately. Shame he wasted the money.”

Levi scowls, though the compliment doesn’t go unnoticed. “In this economy, too? He should have taken the hint the first time.” 

He and Hanji laugh, whilst Eren simply circles the rim of his glass with his index finger. He looks lost in thought, but what about, Levi has no idea. 

If the two failed attempts at getting Levi’s attention were anything to go by, not to mention the overall awkwardness of the evening so far, perhaps they should have called it a night already. 

They don’t, however, for some reason that eclipses Levi. (Firmly denies the possibility that it might be something to do with Eren’s presence at their table). True to the general vibe of the evening, around fifteen minutes later, ‘muscle-head’ (as Mikasa had coined him), tries his luck for a third time. 

Levi has just finished taking a piss when the man corners him on the way out. 

“You don’t drink vodka?” he asks, placing his arm against the wall, effectively trapping Levi right there in the loos. He smirks. “I’m Nathan, but everyone calls me Nate.” 

Levi sighs loudly. “Look – I don’t care what your name is because I’m not interested, alright? I already made that clear. Now let me out.” 

The man – _Nathan_ – continues as if Levi hadn’t said anything at all. “I’ve seen you before,” he tells him. “At the gay bar in town. I know your type.” 

His words ignite something ugly in Levi. He takes a step back to regard the guy properly. “ _My type?_ ” he demands, nostrils flaring. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Nathan steps forward. “Y’know, the type to play shy. It’s sexy.” He eyes Levi up and down. Alarm bells ring like a siren at the back of Levi’s head. “Can I at least get your number?”

He’s close enough that the beer on his breath is all Levi can smell. 

“No,” he says, firmly. “Now move out of my way.”

His voice is completely steady, despite the adrenaline beginning to course through his veins like a drug. It’s not like he hasn’t had to fend off unwanted pursuers before, but none as persistent as this. 

Nathan doesn’t budge. 

Levi knows there’s no point trying to rationalize with a drunken idiot like this, and so he just heaves an frustrated breath as he moves to walk around him.  
Nathan stops him in his tracks – grabs him by the shoulders and forces his back against the wall with enough force that it leaves him feeling winded. 

“The fuck is your problem –,” 

“Levi?” 

Both Levi and Nathan look in the direction of the voice. Eren is stood there, cheeks red with anger, hand curled into a fist.

“Can I help you?”

Nathan is slurring a little, his hand still firm against Levi’s chest. 

Eren doesn’t hesitate. He squares right up to him, shoulders rising and falling with every poorly composed breath. “Get the fuck away from him right now,” he orders. 

“Or what?” says Nathan, turning to regard Eren properly. Or to size him up, most likely, and the thought makes Levi’s stomach drop. “Want him for yourself, do you?”

Levi grimaces. 

Without warning, Eren curls his fists into Nathan’s shirt and forces him against the wall. He’s leaner than him, but moves the guy with apparent ease nonetheless. Levi tries to get between them but Eren presses a gentle hand against his wrist in silent warning. 

“Eren, leave it,” he tries, but Eren is seething. 

Nathan only goads him on, though, and Levi can see the fury plastered like war paint over Eren’s face. 

“Own him, do you? Is he your little _slut_?” he jeers. 

It’s the wrong thing to say. In any situation, that would be completely the wrong thing to say, let alone with Eren’s tightly clenched fists twisted right into the collar of his shirt. 

It happens too fast for Levi to process but Eren draws back and punches the guy right in the face. 

Levi watches in horror as he slips against the wall, blood dripping from his nose. Like a pro boxer in a ring, however, it’s only a second before he stands straight again. 

Unsurprisingly, he responds in kind, punching Eren messily in the mouth. 

Time seems to slow down as Eren hits the floor, and watching it happen does something strange to Levi. He moves with him, grabs him firmly by the shoulders.

The commotion seems to be gaining them some attention, people have gathered outside the cubicles to watch – and Levi grabs for Eren, tries to help haul him off the floor. 

“Let’s fucking _go_ ,” he hisses at him through gritted teeth. He yanks him up and pulls him angrily by the forearm as Eren hurls a series of insults over his shoulder. They push their way past the growing onlookers, and amongst them, Hanji and Mikasa – who both look completely stunned. 

“What the fuck happened to my brother?” Mikasa is saying, but Levi can focus only on dragging Eren behind him. He can hear Nathan still shouting from the toilets, “fucking dirty little queers”. It’s pathetic and Levi fumes, concentrating solely on removing Eren before he has the chance to turn around and finish what he started.  


Eventually, they make it outside, Hanji and Mikasa in tow. 

“What the _fuck_ was that all about?” Mikasa demands, dabbing at Eren’s busted lip with the sleeve of her cardigan. 

Eren pushes her hand away and spits blood at the ground. “That fucking creep had Levi cornered in the toilets, slammed him into the fucking wall, for Christ’s sake.” 

Hanji gasps and places a hand on Levi’s shoulder. Levi, however, is not in need of comfort right now. The anger sets his skin alight, even against the light chill of the late spring evening. 

“Are you _trying_ to lose your license?”

Eren points angrily toward the entrance and Mikasa tries to placate him by taking him by the shoulders. She’s saying something or other, trying to calm him down, but for all of it’s efficacy she might as well have not even been there. “Do you know what he might have done if I hadn’t shown up?” Eren shouts, and Levi scoffs. 

“You had it handled without breaking his fucking nose, Eren!”

“Yeah, well, the guy deserved more that.” 

Levi makes this noise of disbelief and drags his hands down his face. “What if he’d decided to kick the shit out of you, huh?” (The thought makes Levi sick, and in hindsight, maybe he should have told him that.)

Eren blinks and then laughs this short, biting laugh that sounds alien and misplaced coming from him. “Better that than the alternative if I hadn’t intervened.”

Levi digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. “You sound so immature right now, you know that?” 

There’s about four feet or so of space between them, and Eren makes it three by taking a step towards him. Mikasa is alternating between watching Eren and trying to check the bar, and Levi feels this horrible stab of guilt for what had transpired. 

“Immature, huh? That’s the problem, isn’t it?” 

Hanji interjects, just then. “Come on, Eren, let’s not do this here,” they try to reason. It’s useless; the floodgates were open and there was no closing them, now. 

“I’m just too young and dumb for you. ‘Cause, you know, God forbid the Messiah of cardiothoracic surgery be caught wasting his time on a kid. On a _resident._ ”

Levi feels like _he’s_ the one who’s been punched. He wants to tell Eren that he’s wrong, but the only thing that comes to mind is some watered down excuse about not being able to let him in because he had become used to being alone, and that offering himself to someone again feels like clinging to the edge of a cliff by his fingernails and just praying he won’t fall – that he thought of little else other than Eren because he was good, and genuine, and the only thing except surgery that actually made him feel _alive_ – just something, something along those lines, and God, did it sound pathetic. 

So, he doesn’t say any of that. 

“If that’s what you want to think, then I won’t waste my time trying to correct you.” The words sound so bitter, and they taste it, too. 

Perhaps Eren had been waiting for Levi to correct him. Perhaps that’s what he’d been hoping for.

The resident shakes his head, and the look on his face is disappointed, although not surprised.

Mikasa is telling Eren that she has to get back to work. She makes him promise to call her tomorrow and kisses him on the cheek, before giving this awkward half smile to Levi and Hanji.

Eren watches her until she’s gone. 

It falls awkwardly silent, until Hanji clears their throat.

“We should all go home and get some sleep. The two of you can discuss this when the dust has settled.” Levi knows they’re trying to help, but it’s a lost cause. 

“I don’t think there’s much else to discuss,” he replies. There isn’t; whatever had been there between he and Eren had been thoroughly ruined. 

Eren wipes the blood pooling over his lip. 

“No,” he agrees. “Because no one will ever be Erwin, will they?” 

The words steal the air from Levi’s lungs. Even Hanji tenses beside him. 

Eren doesn’t wait for Levi to shout, or tell him he’s crossed a line – he just turns on his heel and walks away, taking with him all the things that Levi wishes he had the courage to say.


	5. revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI so i had my covid jab last week and im totally fine except from feeling completely wiped out and my job is killing me rn so this chapter is rly short sry
> 
> also eren is a whole ass dom fight me if u disagree

The next couple of days pass in a blur. Eren and Levi avoid each other like the plague and it pains Levi to admit it to himself but the lack of his overbearing presence feels like a giant void. It seemed unfathomable how quickly Eren had interjected himself into Levi’s life, as though he were an overlay slotted right into a piece of film. As though he were _supposed_ to be there. 

If today is anything to go by, Eren has most definitely told his peers about what had happened – as Levi arrives for rounds the residents suddenly fall silent, with Kirstein and Reiss looking anywhere but his face. He chooses not to address it, which probably makes it all the more awkward, but for whom, he isn’t sure. 

He has Dr. Reiss present. She’s a capable doctor with a knack for cardio, and although he’d never admit it, one of Levi’s favourite residents. He’d absolutely heard her telling Kirstein that Levi had ‘dumped’ Eren for hitting a guy that assaulted him – and the fact that she’d fallen victim to gossip of that nature makes his skin bristle. Levi had decidedly chosen to ignore the reality of what had happened, or what might have happened, for reasons that he fails to pin down. So, naturally, to hear someone else discussing it as though it was nothing more than today’s hot topic leaves a foul taste in his mouth that he struggles to swallow down. 

Not to mention the fact that you can’t dump somebody that you were never officially dating, but gossip is nothing if not embellished, he supposes. 

Reiss hesitates a little and Levi wonders if she knows that what he had overheard. “Zacharias Perdomo, 27 years old, second spontaneous pneumothorax in eighteen months. Dr. Ackerman did a thoracostomy to drain the excess fluid the first time around, but given how short the interval has been before a second collapse, he will perform a pleurodesis this morning.” 

Levi doesn’t look up from the chart as he nods. 

“Kirstein, would you care to explain the procedure?” he asks, although he may as well have asked the resident to open the patient up there and then. Kirstein says nothing and Levi just knows he hadn’t been paying an ounce of attention. “Pleurodesis, Dr. Kirstein,” he repeats. “Explain the procedure.” 

“Uh – yes. Um, Pleurodesis –,”

Reiss clears her throat next to him and steps forward. 

“Dr. Ackerman will spray what is known as an irritating chemical around your lung. This causes inflammation so that the lining will adhere to your chest wall,” she explains, ignoring the way Kirstein scoffs at her interruption. “This will help to stop the buildup of excess fluid to prevent the risk of reoccurrence.” She looks at him, then – and Levi thinks perhaps she had taken the opportunity from Kirstein so that Levi might be impressed enough to forget that she’d been talking about him. 

It’s a reprieve that Levi doesn’t afford her. Instead he simply tucks his pen into the pocket of his lab coat and smiles at Mr. Perdomo. 

“It’s a simple procedure. I’ll be in and out within half an hour,” he tells him, before nodding politely and making his exit. The residents follow, albeit reluctantly, and Levi waits until the door is shut before he turns on them.

“Next time you decide to gossip, I suggest you do it _out_ of ear shot of the person you’re talking about. Residents lounge, perhaps?” he deadpans. Reiss swallows hard and Kirstein looks to the floor. “Just a suggestion.” 

He places Mr. Perdomo’s chart flat against Reiss’ chest, who takes it without looking him in the eye. “Prep him for surgery and page me when you’re done.” 

He feels a little guilty as he walks away – gossiping about the attendings wasn’t something exclusive to the two of them, but _this_ particular subject felt entirely too personal to hear being retold from the mouths of those who had nothing to do with it. 

Perhaps he was more angry at the fact that Eren had even taken it upon himself to tell people, when he himself had told no one. Not that it was a story that he wanted to share; hell, he’d spent the last couple of days trying and failing spectacularly to forget about it. 

Hanji has plenty to say, he’s sure, but even they’re keeping tight lipped. Levi is positive they’re just biding their time and making sure they’ve got their argument prepared for when they decide to tell him he reacted like a complete asshole toward Eren.

Probably, anyway. It had been hard to gage their feelings about his and Eren’s fight; when Eren had left he’d followed suit not long after, leaving Hanji to try and apologize again to Mikasa. The only time they had really spoken was when Hanji had text him the following morning, which had read: 

_hope ur ok! :( wanted to let u kno that eren’s sister put that guys pic in this fb page for bar owners in town. never mentioned ur name but a few people came forward to say he was aggressive with them too. nothing too sinister by the sounds of it thank god but still. sounds like u werent the first. hes been banned from pretty much every drinking hole since mikasa posted so that’s something. anyway pls don’t disappear ! i hate it when u do that_

And Levi had replied: 

_I’m fine. Not the first drunk idiot I’ve encountered. Glad he won’t be able to drink anywhere from now on. See you at work._

Not a single mention of Eren, and honestly, it was for the best. What on Earth would he even say? 

He shakes the thought from his mind as he rounds the corner to the skills lab. He’d left his 3D printed hearts in there from when he was demonstrating a mitral valve repair the week before, but the interns had a history of having sticky hands when it came to medical paraphernalia so it’d be a miracle if they were even still where he left them. Still, they were his own and _not_ hospital property, so if any of the interns _had_ pinched them, he’d have to send out a memo politely requesting their anonymous return. 

He’s rounding the corner to the lab when he slams straight into another body, one considerably taller than his own. 

He recognizes the smell instantly, it hits him square in the face like a fucking shovel – sugared pistachios and instant coffee. 

Eren’s apologizing before he realizes who it is he’s come chest to chest with. Levi steps back in an instant. 

“Sorry,” Eren blurts. 

Levi shrugs in attempt to appear unfazed. “Don’t worry about it.” He steps to the left to move around him, but Eren does the same. It’s awkward and Levi can see the panic in Eren’s eyes. They do exactly the same thing by simultaneously stepping to the right, and Levi cringes so hard he’s sure his dead relatives can feel it. 

Eventually, after repeating this three times, Levi huffs and stands still. 

“Right, I’m going this way.” He gestures to the left and Eren nods, once, before letting Levi pass. 

Levi forgets where it is he’s even going but as muscle memory would have it, he ends up inside the skills lab, back pressed up against the door. His palms sweat and his heart pounds against his ribs, nauseating, like the wings of a hummingbird fluttering desperately against an iron cage. 

He drags both of his hands through his hair in frustration, letting his palms settle there, chunks of hair caught between his fingers. There’s no one else here and so Levi uses the opportunity to ground himself, staring wide eyed and unblinking at nothing in particular.

The good news is that he can see his hearts at the corner of his peripheral vision. They are still bundled into a neat circle, exactly where he had left them – and eventually, Levi breathes out hard through his nose, lets his hands drop to his sides. 

Bundles each of the six silicone hearts into his arms and cradles them all the way to the attendings lounge two floors up.

He arrives to find Erwin sat with one leg propped against the other and his glasses balanced delicately at the tip of his nose. He seems to be diligently scanning an open binder, until he glances up at Levi, and then flips the thing shut. 

“Figures for cardio were higher than any other department last month,” he starts. Levi rolls his eyes at the wall, before placing the hearts one by one into his locker. 

“Is that a question or just an observation?” he asks, twisting his key in the lock. 

He hears Erwin hum. It’s a low rumble that, when used at the correct timbre, used to make Levi hard. Now it’s just irritating. 

“You did two pro bono surgeries in March,” Erwin says. “Coming out of your pocket, are they?” 

Levi turns to face him. “You’re absolutely right. I should have tossed them aside and let a completely treatable disease ruin their lives.” 

It’s not the answer that Erwin had been looking for, going by the way he sighs heavy into his shoulders and rests his glasses on the face of the binder. “I chose you for this job because you are the best at what you do.” 

“And now you’ve changed your mind?” Levi challenges. He crosses his arms over his chest and regards Erwin blankly. 

Erwin stares him down, though his gaze is soft. 

“Quite the contrary. You remain unmatched. Your mortality rates are one of the lowest in the hospital.” 

Levi presses his lips into a thin line and scuffs his sneaker against the floor. Evie’s face flashes across his mind and he bites the inside of his cheek. “Make your point, Erwin.”

Erwin sighs. “Behave, Levi,” he quips. “You know exactly what I’m trying to say, don’t make me spell it out for you.” 

He cocks an eyebrow, but Levi remains expressionless. “You want a department head who cares more for the books than they do the very real lives of our very real patients?” Levi probes. “Because that isn’t me, it never has been me, and it never will be me. You knew that when you asked me to take the job.”

Erwin’s jaw works and Levi watches as a thousand possible responses pass over the man’s face. Giving Erwin a hard time hadn’t been on his to do list today, but it never ceased to frustrate Levi when he played dumb. 

“Next pro bono comes out of your salary, and I'm not kidding,” he threatens. “We won’t be able to care for anyone if we don’t have a hospital.” 

“It’s your job to worry about that. Mine is to keep people alive. Let’s stick to what we’re good at.”

Erwin’s face grows dark and he leans forward in his seat. “My affection for you won’t keep you out of trouble for much longer, Levi. Your lack of respect is abhorrent.” 

That forces a biting laugh from the back of Levi’s throat.

“Your _affection_ for me? Sorry, did I miss something?” 

He can feel the anger beginning to simmer beneath his skin. Knows it’s a bad look on him but let’s the heat of it fuel him anyway. 

Erwin, on the other hand, looks tired. 

“For goodness sake, Levi, stop it,” he sighs, fingers moving to pull at his tie. It’s a tell tale move – he does it when he’s flustered, and Levi’s nostrils flare. “You know full well how I feel about you,” he says. And then, quieter, “how I’ve _always_ felt about you.” 

Levi shakes his head vehemently. The words light a new fuse – they pull something ugly from the depths of his defenses. 

“No, fuck that,” he snaps. “Fuck you, you don’t get to say shit like that to me. You know how long it took me to get over you?” It’s a rhetorical question but Erwin looks like he wants to answer it. Levi doesn’t give him the opportunity. “You’re a cop out, Erwin. You couldn’t handle a serious relationship and so you used the job as an out, and now you want me to step down but you haven’t got the balls to just say it so you’re hiding behind pretend feelings. Ugh, it’s embarrassing, you know that?” 

“Levi –,”

“No, forget it.” His pager beeps in his pocket and Levi curls his hand around the device. “You’ll have my letter of resignation by the end of today along with my recommendation of replacement. If you’ve nothing else to add, I have a surgery to get to.”

*

Levi rarely said things that he didn’t mean. Candidness was something he offered in abundance – if he was unhappy about something, he said it. (This candidness, however, did not extend to budding relationships, historically speaking). 

Incidentally, he’d meant it when he told Erwin he’d be resigning. 

He’d written the letter almost immediately after Mr. Perdomo’s pleurodesis. The envelope weighs heavy in his hand and he bites the inside of his cheek as he places it on Erwin’s desk. The man himself is nowhere to be seen – whether that has anything to do with their earlier altercation is unclear. Either way, he’d find the letter, detailing Levi’s official resignation as the head of cardiothoracic surgery at Trost Medical, and his recommendation of Petra Ral as his replacement. 

Erwin’s ‘admission’ had consequently made Levi aware of two things exactly. The first – stepping down is the most strategic career move he could possibly make. In hindsight, he had only accepted the job because, A) he felt he had something to prove, and B) if he’d said no, it might appear as though he’d only rejected because it was Erwin who had offered it. 

Unsurprisingly, Erwin was excelling at everything he had set out to without Levi – and Levi had wanted to show that he could do the same. Looking back, it was a choice that he had made for all the wrong reasons. There would never come a time that Levi would care for profit, or budget meetings, or figures. 

His skills were best utilized inside the OR and _not_ the statements that it produced each quarter. 

This is the first thing that has happened upon him with startling clarity.  


The second?

The second is that he is completely and utterly infatuated with Eren Jaeger, and – thus far – had treated him horribly. 

It had been like coming up for air. Erwin had crossed a line, but at least Levi could thank him for helping him realise that what he wanted was _Eren._

He pages the resident four times whilst it still seems like a good idea. If he had waited too long, the courage would only wash away, leaving in it’s wake regret and shame, and the overwhelming feeling of cowardice. 

He’s hiding in the ICU supply closet again. De ja vu hits him like a freight train, and Levi has to ignore the flush creeping up his neck at the memory of the two of them the last time they had met here. 

Ten minutes pass in which Eren doesn’t respond. Levi thinks he’s either tied up with a patient or perhaps he’d actually blown it. He prays against the latter, pages him once more for good measure, and begins to wonder if he’d lost his mind. 

He doesn’t get to wonder long. Three minutes later there’s a soft knock at the door, followed by Eren’s hushed voice,

“Sir?” 

Levi pushes the door open and Eren slips inside. 

“Um,” he starts, understandably bewildered. He’s probably suffering whiplash and his apprehension is clear in the way his eyebrows knit together. He opens his mouth to say something else but Levi is shaking his head.

“No, let me get this out,” says Levi. “If I don’t say it now then I might never say it at all.” He digs his hands into the pockets of his lab coat and sighs. Eren must be waiting with bated breath because Levi can’t even hear him breathing. “I’m very sorry for the way I’ve treated you. I want you to know that I don’t want you to be Erwin.” Levi looks up at Eren, and it’s impossible not to notice how the resident stands head and shoulders above him when they’re stood this close. Levi swallows. “I’ve never wanted that, and I’m sorry if you felt that way.”  


Eren stands awkwardly against the door. Levi watches him shift, the door handle squeaking against his weight. 

“Levi, I –,”

Levi takes a step closer and talks right over him. (It doesn’t elude him that Eren rarely calls him by his actual name, usually opting for _sir_ or _doctor_ , so hearing him say _Levi_ makes something twist deep inside of him.) 

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he blurts. “I know I’ve been hot and cold and you probably think I’m nuts but honestly every time I’m around you I can barely think straight. The only reason I got so mad at you the other night was because I don’t know what I would have done if you’d gotten hurt. The thought scared me and so I panicked. Truthfully, it was really fucking sexy, the way you defended me like that, even if it was completely reckless –,”

An echo of last time, Eren cuts him off by curling a hand around the back of his neck and kissing Levi with enough force to leave a bruise. 

Levi melts, instantly – sags boneless against the shelves, an echo of their previous encounter only a couple of weeks before. The swell of Eren’s barely healed lip tastes almost reminiscent, and the cut opens a little for him under the ministrations, beads of blood tasting sweet against his tongue. 

If it stings, Eren doesn’t show it. He uses one hand to cradle the back of Levi’s head and the other to cup his cheek, slotting the long line of his body into Levi’s like a missing puzzle piece finally found at long last. 

When he relents, it takes Levi a moment or two to kickstart his brain again.

“So… you’re not mad at me?” he asks, dumbly. 

Eren laughs and leans his arm against the shelves behind Levi’s head. 

“No, I am mad, and you _will_ pay for it.” 

Levi watches Eren’s gaze travel the length of his body, something monstrous in his eyes. “How so?” Levi asks, although he has a sneaky suspicion that he knows exactly where this is going. 

Eren bites his lip and that in itself makes Levi weak at the knees. He leans in a little, whispers right into the shell of Levi’s ear. “I’m going to have you come right here in this closet, and you can’t make a single sound, else everyone in the corridor will know exactly what we’re up to.” 

Levi’s heart hammers in his chest. Fuck.

“How will you do that?” he asks. He’s half hard already, and doesn’t suspect Eren will have any trouble making good on his promise. 

A flicker of a smile passes across Eren’s face before he’s licking into Levi’s mouth. He kisses carefully, cleverly, in a way that has Levi wondering if he’d ever been kissed properly before this – he is smothered by Eren, completely spellbound by him. It feels like everything he’d ever been missing and the sensation leaves him lightheaded. 

Eren’s hand has migrated from the side of Levi’s cheek to the waistband of his pants. He’s silently seeking permission, and Levi gives it to him, grabbing handfuls of his scrubs and trying desperately to pull him closer.  


Long fingers breach the confines of his underwear, gently sliding down until they meet his cock. Levi stills against the shelves, the contact overwhelming – and barely resists the urge to moan into Eren’s mouth as he takes him in his hand. 

“Ah,” warns Eren. “Be quiet, Doctor.”

The whole thing is fucking ridiculous and the depravity of it makes it feel _so_ much better when Eren thumbs the slit of his cock. He spreads the moisture over the head, and Levi grabs aimlessly behind him, clutching the corner of the shelf for dear life as though his legs might fail him there and then. 

“Lovely,” says Eren, hand starting a deliciously slow pace up and down Levi’s length. He steals any sounds of approval right from his mouth, kisses him thoroughly, expertly, in such a way that has Levi blinking back the cosmos from the inside of his eyelids. 

The closet really does open up straight onto the corridor and they can hear the general commotion of the ICU outside – someone is on the phone, whilst another person is giving instructions to a nurse. 

Eren keeps Levi pinned where he is, one hand still cupped firmly over the base of his skull, the other dexterously building heat right where Levi needs it most.  


“Imagine if someone walked in,” Eren whispers against Levi’s cheek. “Imagine them seeing you like this, the way you look right now. Putty in my hands.” 

Levi needs to make noise, an outlet of some sorts, and Eren can tell. He lets out this sharp intake of breath and Eren licks a stripe from Levi’s jaw all the way to his ear lobe, “tell me when you’re close,” he whispers, and Levi nods, all words failing him. 

Eren must really want to make Levi suffer because the next thing Levi knows is that he’s goading him on, debauchery dripping from his lips like honey. “How does it feel?” he asks, the words whispered softly into the spot just behind Levi’s ear. 

Levi falters, and then tips his face toward the ceiling. 

“Feels – _ah_ – fuck, feels good,” he manages, eyes squeezing shut as Eren picks up the pace a little.

“Hmm,” Eren hums, contemplatively. “I’m not sure you deserve it. If we weren’t in the supply closet I’d edge the fuck out of you right now. Have you _begging_ me to let you come.”

That’s it – Levi tenses, the coiling in his stomach finally pulling tight enough to snap – “Shit, Eren,” he warns, and Eren is amazingly quick to sink to his knees and replace his hand with the heat of his mouth.

Levi does come, hard – paints the back of Eren’s throat in thick bursts. Eren takes it all, swallows it down without complaint. Levi just about manages to yank his pants back up before his knees give a little, and Eren jumps up, wraps an arm around his waist and holds him there. 

“Lovely,” he praises, and Levi rests his forehead against his shoulder. Eren smoothes his hand over the back of his hair. “Just lovely. I’m impressed.” 

“That I came in your mouth without making any noise?” Levi murmurs, drunk on the high of his orgasm and the heady smell of Eren’s aftershave.

Eren chuckles. “That, and your attempt at apologizing for being emotionally stunted. Ten out of ten for effort.” 

That draws a tired laugh from Levi right into the crook of Eren’s neck. His skin is soft, unblemished – _young_ , but Levi is too spent to care about the teasing voice at the back of his mind branding him a cradle-snatcher. It’s only ten years, and Eren had made his opinion on the matter perfectly clear. “Careful, I have a praise kink,” Levi says. 

Eren turns his face to kiss into his hair. “That’s useful to know.” 

Seconds pass in which neither of them say anything – and Levi begins to wonder if Eren is getting tired; he's supporting his weight almost entirely, after all.

“You know I’d do the same thing again, don’t you?” asks Eren, eventually.

“Hmm?”  


He doesn’t miss a beat. 

“I’d lamp that fucker again without thinking twice. I don’t regret it.”

“I know,” murmurs Levi. Adding anything else feels unnecessary. It wouldn’t change anything, and it didn’t need to.  


Levi is sure he could fall asleep right there with Eren holding him up. Sadly, the universe has other ideas. His pager beeps in his pocket and he groans. “I have to go,” he laments, leaning back to regard Eren properly. “But if you find me later, I’ll return the favour.” 

Eren smirks.

“I’ll hold you to that.”


	6. david of michelangelo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> most of this chapter is just shameless smut enjoy

Unsurprisingly, the page had been Erwin summoning Levi to his office. The thing is, he knew Levi well enough to send a text too.

_**13:11 Erwin Smith** : My office. Now, unless you’re otherwise predisposed. _

Levi scowls at his phone. Erwin had probably meant that entirely innocently but given what he’d just been up to, it makes him suddenly feel like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. 

Every step toward his destination feels very final. Of course, his resignation meant only that he’d no longer be figure heading cardio; he would still be a surgical attending. In honesty, the thought of ever leaving Trost Medical behind feels alien – and Levi is sure it would take a rather spectacular opportunity to have him ever consider giving it up. 

Strangely, the hospital is a home away from home, and not even Erwin had the power to take that away from him. Even so, the journey from that sordid supply closet toward the office is arduous, and Levi would much sooner have spent a little longer being held by Eren. 

The door is ajar but Levi knocks anyway. 

“You’ve never bothered knocking before, no need to start now,” comes Erwin’s voice from inside. 

Levi closes it behind him. 

Erwin is stood behind his desk, one hand on his hip, the other gesturing towards Levi’s now open letter. 

“This is definitely what you want?” he asks simply, and Levi can’t help but notice the frown lines set deep across his forehead. The atmosphere feels loaded, like Erwin might snap at any given second. Levi is visibly less tense, now, although that’s probably owed to Eren’s handy work. He hopes to God he’s not flushing red – he’d literally only just left the closet, and suddenly feels very aware that he’d neglected to freshen up before answering Erwin’s page. It’s not like he could _smell_ of sex, hell – it had only been a hand job, but still – the paranoia has him trying to discreetly sniff the air. 

"Absolutely,” he says. “I’ve hated the job since the day I took it. I trust you’ll approach Dr. Ral?” 

He doesn’t want to talk about earlier. He really doesn’t. Not now, not with the memory of Eren’s fingers wrapped around his cock, not whilst he’s still riding the high of finally telling the resident how he felt about him. 

Erwin, on the other hand, looks like he’s just about fit to burst. He runs a hand through his hair, and Levi can’t help but notice how he looks just a little disheveled, which, for Erwin, is unheard of. He’s undone the first button of his shirt, his sleeves are rolled to his elbows, his hair looks as though he’s been nervously messing with it – the whole aesthetic is ill fitting, and Levi just stands there. Feels like he’s letting Erwin reload. 

“I wanted to make sure you weren’t going to change your mind,” he finally tells him, taking his glasses from the top of his head and chucking them against the desk. “This is a decision that seems to be fueled by emotion rather than rational thought, Levi. I would hate to be the reason you gave up your department.” 

Levi scoffs. “Then you’ll be pleased to know that it was nothing to do with you. I’m quitting because it doesn’t suit me. Anyway, you should be relieved, now you don’t have to worry about firing me.” 

Erwin shakes his head. “I was never going to fire you.” 

“Is that all?” asks Levi. This conversation wasn’t going to take them places that either of them wanted to go “Because I have –,” 

“I know you don’t have a surgery, Levi, I just checked the OR board.” Erwin cocks an eyebrow. 

Levi sticks his tongue into his cheek and sighs. “Then what? What more is there to say?” 

Levi can see the cogs turning. Erwin opens his mouth to say something, but then must think better of it. He looks away from Levi, and then back to the letter of resignation on his desk. 

“Nothing. That’s all.” 

Levi nods once, before seizing the opportunity to escape.  


He bolts from the office all the way back to the attendings lounge. 

_**to: Hanji Zoe**_

_**13:20 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD** : Are you busy?  
_

__

__

*

Hanji sits across from him, lips pursed, hands folded in their lap. 

“Before you say anything, I just want to tell you that whilst I don’t support violence of any kind, you might want to consider apologizing.” Levi blinks – he’s sat across from them at the table, each of them nursing their own shitty canteen coffee. He should have lead by telling them that he and Eren were okay, but something in Hanji’s face had told him that they needed to get this off their chest, else they might burst. 

Hanji is a champagne bottle after popping the cork. “He’s been moping around since you fought and honestly it’s starting to get a little depressing. The kid is clearly smitten and your inability to express your emotions is impacting his work, so if you wouldn’t mind swallowing your pride –,”

“—Hanji, he only just got done jerking me off in a supply closet. I think we’re good.” 

Hanji’s jaw drops and their hand slaps against the table hard enough to shake the coffee. 

“Levi Ackerman!” They squeal. Levi winces. “I cannot keep up with you. I want _exact_ details of how this happened, from start to finish.”

Levi winces again. “Poor choice of words.”

Hanji waves him off and leans forward, indicating toward their ears. 

“Well, I suppose I really should start from the beginning,” he laments. Levi palms the back of his neck, and then circles the rim of his coffee mug, just to have something to do with his hands. “Erwin basically said that the reason I’m still in a job is because he has feelings for me,” he says. He pauses there, allows Hanji the breadth to process it – and their jaw hits the floor once more. “I suppose it got me thinking about what I wanted.” 

Hanji’s eyes narrow in a sort of angered disbelief. 

“That bastard,” they comment, leaning back in their chair in thought. “The timing is a little sus, don’t you think?”

Levi raises an eyebrow. “The thought _did_ cross my mind, but Erwin has too much pride to stoop that low.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure, Levi. I mean, everyone knows everything around here. You and Eren _aren’t_ exactly a secret, especially not since he turned up for work with a busted lip and a heroic tale of defending your honor to boot. And Erwin chooses now to tell you he’s still in love with you? After almost five years of nothing? That’s not a coincidence, my darling.” 

Hanji chews their bottom lip and Levi stares blankly into his coffee. Perhaps Erwin had sought to manipulate him, but why? There’s no way in Hell he truly still had feelings for Levi, so why would his relationship with Eren bother him?

“I think he’s full of shit,” Levi says, eventually. “He doesn’t have feelings for me, he was just looking for an excuse not to fire me because he’s a wimp.” 

Hanji doesn’t look convinced, but if they have anything else to add, they choose not to press the matter any further. Instead, they shrug, and then they lean in a little again, resting their chin against their folded knuckles. 

“Go on. What happened next?”

Levi sighs. “I quit.” 

Hanji blinks. “You did what?”

“I resigned,” he repeats. “As head of cardio.”

He tries to read their face, but Hanji is expressionless. 

“No, no, I heard you.”

The chair squeaks against the tile floor as Levi shifts his weight. 

“Look, don’t start,” he says, shucking himself free of his lab coat. Speaking about everything that had transpired today has him feeling rather like a specimen on a petri dish, slid underneath a microscope set to a thousand times magnification for Hanji to inspect. It makes him feel hot, and he ignores the way his scrubs suddenly feel itchy. “Now I can concentrate on my surgeries, and I won’t have Erwin constantly on my back over costs. It’s for the best.” 

Hanji looks as though they don’t know whether to be disappointed or not. Their face is an ever changing mix of expressions – confused, surprised, and then… impressed? Levi watches them with a raised brow.

“Okay. Okay, we’ll circle back to this,” they finally say, and Levi smirks. 

“Well, after I handed in my resignation I asked Eren to meet me.” He sips his coffee contemplatively. “I told him I was sorry, and that admittedly, I’d been an ass,” (Hanji makes a face in agreement), “and it kind of went from there. I think Erwin saying what he did put things into perspective.” 

“So?” Hanji probes. “Was it the hottest thing ever? Did you suck him off or anything after? Levi – please tell me you reciprocated.”

Levi coughs. “Jesus, Hanji. Yes, it was hot, and no, I didn’t reciprocate. I was summoned by his Grace.”

Hanji rolls their eyes. “Of course. I bet he knew, guy’s got eyes all over the place.” They sip their coffee, curling both hands around the mug and leaning forward. “You made a lot of big choices today, I’m very impressed. My little Levi, all grown up.” They pretend to wipe a tear from their eye and Levi pokes his tongue into his cheek.

“Alright, you don’t need to patronize me. Anyway, I’m older than you, remember?”

Hanji winks. “Still little, though.” 

“Please,” he says, challengingly. “I could snap you like a twig and you know it.”

“Ooh,” Hanji coos. “Say that to Eren, I bet he’ll like it.”

*

It’s almost midnight by the time Eren finds Levi. The day had been a fucking whirlwind after his chat with Hanji – Levi had been paged to the ER at four o clock following a three car pile up that had left one particular individual skewered through the chest by a broken road barrier, another in need of a complete AK amputation, one suffering tension pneumothorax, and one left completely brain dead. Petra had taken the pneumothorax, and Levi, the poor gentleman who had been impaled – and the surgery to remove the offending object had been grueling. 

It’s after eleven just as he’s scrubbing out – the relief of success eases the aching in his bones, if only a little. Petra offers to stay on, but Levi shakes his head at her where she stands in the doorway. She’d poked her head in to let him know her own surgery had been successful, and that she could stay to monitor the both of them, if Levi was tired. 

“Go home and get some sleep,” Levi tells her, scrubbing his hands in the basin. “Good work today.” 

She hesitates, and Levi can feel her eyes burning holes into his head as he de-scrubs.

“Thank you for my recommendation,” she says, eventually. 

Levi smiles at the running water. 

“You’re an excellent surgeon. There’s no one more deserving.” 

He looks over his shoulder at her and she’s almost bouncing where she stands. Petra winks at him, and then she’s off, leaving the door to swing shut behind her.

_**23:36 eren jaeger [:** : hey, u still around???  
**23:37 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD** : I just got out of surgery. What are you still doing here?  
**23:37 eren jaeger [:** : AK amputation was for a 10yo. im staying so dr zoe can go home  
**23:38 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD** : Shouldn’t ortho be doing that?  
**23:39 eren jaeger [:** : alright so maybe i thought if i stuck around id catch u again today. sue me_  


Levi smirks at his phone. What a sap.  


**_23:40 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD_** _: Why might that be?  
**23:41 eren jaeger [:** : well, if ur not too done in to remember, u made me a promise ;) on call room 6 in 15 if ur up to it???_

The suggestiveness of his words give rise to a creeping flush all the way up Levi’s throat. He’s tired, sure, but when wasn’t he? 

The way he sees it – he’s got all of fifteen minutes to freshen up, grab a coffee and get to the on call room.  


Levi splashes cold water on his face in the toilets of the attendings lounge. His hair looks a little flat, having been trapped beneath a scrub cap for almost seven hours, and Levi runs his fingers through it in attempt to reinvigorate a little life. Sprays himself in aftershave to try and not smell like the inside of an OR. 

Downs not one but _two_ lukewarm cups of coffee in the hopes that it’ll keep him awake long enough to fulfill his earlier promise to Eren. 

Eren’s leaning against the door of the on call room when Levi gets there. 

“Evening, Doctor Ackerman,” Eren smirks. Levi scans the hallway to make sure no one is watching before he grabs Eren by the collar of his scrubs and yanks him inside. 

The second the door closes behind them, Levi locks his ankle around Eren’s and kicks his leg from underneath him. Eren slips – with a gasp – against the wall, hands flying out behind him to steady himself. Levi loops an arm around his waist and holds him there. 

“Jesus, how many times have you done that?” Eren breathes, and Levi watches the way that he watches him, pupils blown to the size of galaxies. Eren is fucking beautiful and it leaves Levi’s mouth dry. “Are you going to eat me?” 

The question shakes Levi from his daze, and he blinks. “Some day, yes, but not right now.” 

Eren makes this noise of vague disappointment, and Levi responds by dipping his head to kiss him. The way he’s got Eren positioned – his hand pressed against the wall, back arched, chest and pelvis aligned with Levi’s, and Levi’s arm wrapped around his waist – he’s _lower_ than Levi, just a bit, and like Hell was he about to waste the opportunity. 

He kisses Eren teasingly slow. Pries his mouth open with his tongue, drawing this sordid little whine from Eren that has Levi chasing the tail end of it, still controlled, only just. 

Eren’s just as hard as he is already. Levi feels him everywhere; the hands kneading softly between the muscles of his back, the wet mouth breathing a gospel of obscenities against his own, _“fucking gorgeous,”, “see how hard I am for you already?,”, “want you to wreck me, Levi.”_

Eren is very vocal. Levi’s never had a lover with so much to say, but the encouragements only spur him on, only fuel the fire that burns with the ferocity of a dying star far beneath his skin, far down to his core, down to his very fucking soul. 

He guides Eren toward the bed. Kisses him with every step, it’s messy and uncoordinated – and it’s not until Eren’s knees hit the edge of the mattress that they break apart. 

Eren leans back on his elbows, cock tented obscenely in his pants. 

Levi drops to his knees, pliantly, and Eren grunts. 

“Fuck, you’re so ready to suck me off, aren’t you?” 

“If it weren’t for my emergency surgery I’d have thought of absolutely nothing else all day,” Levi admits, leaning forward to push Eren’s scrub shirt up. Eren laughs, but it doesn’t last long. 

Levi latches onto a nipple, and it draws this sudden, pained moan from the back of Eren’s throat. “ _Fuck!_ ” 

Momentarily, Levi wonders if he’d hurt him. This concern is soon absolved, though, when Eren’s hand flies to the back of Levi’s head, trapping him there to lap salaciously over the swollen tip. “Fuck, yes, just do that for a moment,” Eren guides, closing his eyes and dropping his head back. 

He looks like something crafted by Michelangelo, this stunning creation, all perfectly carved dips and edges, and Levi would build a monolith in his name if it meant he’d get to look at him forever. 

Levi circles the nipple with his tongue, overjoyed to have found such a sweet little spot. He pulls back momentarily, only to admire his work, the tip blushing magenta against the Sahara of Eren’s skin. Eren bucks his hips at the loss of contact, and Levi is kind – responds by laying the flat of his palm over Eren’s cock, trapped though it is inside the confines of his scrubs and underwear. 

“Feel that?” breathes Eren, pushing his hair from his eyes. Levi looks up at him, pressing the flat of his tongue against his nipple, earning a lovely moan from Eren’s open mouth. “Fuck. Fuck, _Levi_. That’s – _ngh_ – that’s what you do to me.” 

Reducing Eren to a shuddering mess is the hottest thing Levi’s ever done in his entire life, and two years ago he successfully completed the worlds first heterotopic heart transplant. 

Levi slowly begins to work south – tortuously slow, if Eren’s shallow breathing is anything to go by. He pants against the bed, and Levi watches through his lashes as Eren swallows, chin tilted toward the top bunk, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his throat. Eren is a fucking one man show and Levi allows the performance to propel him on, craving more, feels like a fucking addict chasing his next high. 

His mouth finds purchase against the dip of his sternum, where he plants feather light kisses, (one for every time Eren ruts into his hand like a bitch in heat). Next, he migrates to the firm muscle of his abs; Eren is toned, wonderfully so, and Levi wants to fit all of him inside his mouth, wonders if the stretch of skin over the swell of his cock will taste as sweet as the rest. 

His nose brushes the line of hair peeking suggestively, promisingly, from the waistband of Eren’s pants. Drags his tongue through it in an upwards motion, stops just at his belly button, and Eren _squeaks_. 

Levi glances up at him, eyebrow raised. 

“That feel good?” he asks. Eren’s fists are curled into the sheets and even in the dim lighting Levi can see the sheen of sweat coating his skin. 

“Please,” he whines, his bottom lip jutting out in a way that makes Levi want to give him everything. “You’ve been blue balling me a lot longer than this, ever since I first met you, really, and if I don’t come all over that pretty face of yours soon I think I might actually die – ohh, _fuck_ …” 

Levi silences him by pulling back the waistbands of his pants and underwear and running his tongue along the patch of skin there, just, _just_ above his waiting cock. 

“Alright,” he says, finally. “I’ve been wanting to do this for some time, too. Lift your ass up.” 

Eren obliges, shifting to allow Levi to pull his pants down, just below his knees. The heavy appendage between Eren’s legs springs free, and Levi’s heart stops. 

The diagnosis is this: Eren’s cock was made for Levi to suck. And to fuck, eventually, but not right now, because they had nothing on hand, and Levi had fucked enough times to know that prep was essential. 

Levi curls his fingers around it, fucking elated. Eren makes this noise as Levi thumbs the slit, smearing the milky white residue over the head, and Levi doesn’t waste any more time – he leans forward and wraps his mouth around Eren’s length, and wonders how he ever lived this long without knowing the weight of this exact cock against his tongue. 

“Jesus fucking christ,” Eren breathes, and Levi can see his fingers clawing helplessly at the sheets. 

It’s barely seconds before Levi sets to work. He’s tired, really fucking tired but Eren is fucking illegal, the way he drops his head back, threads his fingers through Levi’s hair, the gravelly timbre of his voice when he tells him _“yes, fuck, that’s it, you’re making me feel so good, don’t stop.”_

Levi swallows around Eren’s size – and Eren cries, a little too loudly. The sound goes straight to Levi’s own cock, and as Eren looks back down to watch, Levi is sure to keep eye contact. 

He detaches, then, with this lewd little pop, in favor of dragging his tongue up and down the underside. Eren’s mouth falls open, his hand tightening in Levi’s hair – and then he’s talking to him again, goading him on. 

“Put it back in your mouth, baby, I want to see you choke on it.” 

_Baby._

Eren smirks and Levi obliges. 

Fuck, he’s never been so pliant before. He can only imagine the kinds of things Eren will have him doing with his cock in his ass. 

Levi takes him all the way again, hollows out his cheeks. Ignores the tears forming at the corners of his eyes as Eren takes it upon himself to fuck his mouth, relentlessly, until Levi feels faint – 

And then, 

“Fuck. Gonna come. On your face. _Please_.”  


Thing is, Eren could have asked Levi to harness the sun in that moment and Levi would have done it just for the way he looked. 

And so he lets him – he lets Eren come all over his face, because he asked, because he wanted to. Because he looked so fucking beautiful as he did it. 

Eren pants, painting Levi’s face with all that he had to offer. It’s warm, and sticky, and when he’s finished Levi sits back on his knees. Can’t even open his eyes properly as the come drips over his lids, the sticky residue caught between his lips, in his hair. 

“Oh, baby,” he hears Eren coo, eventually. “Thank you. I’m sorry.” 

Levi licks his lips, and feels very disgusting all at once. 

“Just – shower. Take me to the bathroom.” 

Eren does as he’s told. Levi hears him shuffle off the bed, hastily yanking his pants up his legs. Feels him take his hand, and Levi is up, letting himself be guided by Eren toward the bathroom. 

He daren’t open his eyes – he can feel the come drying to his lashes. 

“Alright, sweetheart, we're in the bathroom. Can you get undressed?” 

Levi scoffs. “I still have the use of my hands.” 

It doesn’t matter, apparently, because he feels Eren in front of him, his hands tugging at his shirt. Levi lifts his arms, scrunches his face up as the material gets stuck to the drying ejaculate. It didn’t matter, they’d be disposed of anyway, but the sensation makes him cringe all the same. 

“I’ll get the water running,” Eren tells him. Levi feels stupid, stood there with his eyes closed, haphazardly stepping out of his pants. Still, Eren treats him like glass. Something precious, to be taken care of. 

Gently takes his hands and guides him into the shower. The water feels good, at least, and he turns his face into the stream, and stands there, wiping away the mess, until he feels Eren’s naked body press against his back. 

“Thank you,” he says again. “You did beautifully.” 

The feeling of Eren’s bare body pressed up against him is something else entirely. The hot water really drives home how exhausted he feels, and he sags, leans his head back against Eren’s shoulder and closes his eyes. Revels in the way Eren’s thumbs rub small circles into the hollow of his hips. 

“Gorgeous,” Eren whispers. “You’re gorgeous.” 

Levi lets out this little half laugh. 

“I’ve been told.” 

Eren scoffs, digs in his thumbs a little harder in reprimand. 

It doesn’t escape Levi’s notice the way Eren’s hands dip down a little further. It feels so good, the slight sting of the hot water, way Eren massages the area just above his cock, which is already half hard, despite the way his bones ache. 

It goes without saying that it isn’t long before Eren curls his hand around Levi, milks him dry right there in the shower. 

Levi comes harder than he had in the supply closet, and, that night, curled up next to Eren in the tiny on call bed, sleeps the best he had in years. 


	7. repercussions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok listen i am SO sorry in advance i never meant for erwin to be such an ASS it just kinda happened i swear i dont hate him hdjsjdksm
> 
> oh and TW for mentions of neglect/abuse

The next morning rolls in faster than Levi would have liked. 

He is shaken awake by a loud banging – and it takes him a solid ten seconds to register where he is. 

Eren sleeps soundly next to him, face pressed animatedly into the pillow, mess of chestnut hair falling into his eyes. Levi turns, letting his arm land across Eren’s body with a thump.

“Nnngh.”

Levi blinks against the overwhelming desire to fall straight back to sleep, squints hard at his watch. _7:32am_.

“Dr. Ackerman?” someone is calling from outside the door. “Are – are you in there, sir?” 

It takes a moment before Levi can recognize the voice as belonging to Dr. Kirstein, and Levi huffs dramatically. 

“Eren,” he groans, flicking the resident hard against the forehead. “Wake up.” 

Eren startles – his eyes fly open, and he scrambles against the sheets. 

“Wha – what time is it? Am I late for rounds?”

The knocking continues and Levi groans. 

“I heard you the first time, Kirstein, give me a minute.” 

He looks around him, and the memories of last night come rushing back fast enough to make his head spin.  


There seems to be one glaringly obvious problem – and Levi winces. 

“Fuck,” he whines. Eren looks at him, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “I don’t have any scrubs.”  


Eren stares blankly, but Levi can pinpoint the exact moment that the flashback kicks in. 

“Ohhhh… Christ. Erm.”

Levi watches him, expectantly, as though waiting for him to materialize a brand new set of clothes right there and then. When this doesn’t happen, he groans.  


He swings his legs over the bed, walks barefoot over to the single chair that sits lonely in the corner of the room. His pants are draped over it – _they_ weren’t soiled with come, at least – and he pulls them over his legs.

Kirstein knocks again and Levi’s patience crumbles.  


“I said I’m coming!”

He pulls the door open minutely.

Kirstein’s eyes immediately drop to Levi’s naked chest, and Levi sighs. 

“What do you want, Kirstein?” 

The resident’s eyes find his face, and he blushes. 

“Uh – I – the chief is looking for you.” He purses his lips together and goes stiff, as though waiting for Levi to launch a verbal assault for delivering such terrible news. Levi drags a hand down his face and Kirstein moves again, looking as though he were trying to peer into the room behind him. “And, um – is Eren in there with you?”

Levi sticks his tongue into his cheek. 

“Why, are you jealous?” 

He’s a bastard and he knows it, but terrorizing the interns and residents came hand in hand with being an attending. He’s building character, that’s all. 

Kirstein’s mouth drops open and he’s tripping over his own words. 

“No! I didn’t mean – I wasn’t asking because – no, Dr. Smith is looking for him too. Both of you.” He’s gone white and Levi’s heart drops into his gut. “He’s looking for both of you.” 

What the fuck could Erwin want with both of them? Their paths rarely crossed on a case and so the idea that he could possibly need to speak to them as a pair is unlikely – 

“It seemed pretty urgent.”

Levi sighs. 

“Fuck, fine. But you’ll need to do something for me.”

The resident worries his bottom lip with his teeth and Levi gestures toward his own exposed torso. “Go and find me some scrubs.” Kirstein looks as though he wants to say something but Levi holds a finger up. “Don’t ask questions, just go.”

“Yes, sir.”

Levi closes the door in his face.

“What did horse face want?” Eren asks, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He looks fucking adorable – his hair is stuck up in all the wrong directions and he still has that sort of dazed, far away look in his eyes. It’s an absolute crime that Levi won’t get to make the most of morning Eren.

“Get dressed,” he tells him. “We’ve been summoned.”

Eren scowls, flinging himself back against the sheets, grumbling something or other about finding his glasses. Levi suddenly remembers that Eren wore usually wore contacts and tries to contain how positively elated he is at the thought of getting to see him in his specs again. The resident fumbles around until his hand finds purchase against the case tucked beneath his pillow. 

“Wait,” he suddenly says, pushing the heavy lenses up his nose. “Summoned by who?”

Levi breathes hard through his nose and tries not to enter cardiac arrest at the sight of Eren. He’s not sure how he manages it but he looks like a cartoon character, and it makes his heart swell. 

“Erwin,” he says, more than a little disgruntled. 

He sits back on the bed, groaning a little as he goes. He hadn’t slept that well in a long time, but the tiny on call bed had left him with aches and pains, knots on knots. Apparently, he was now old enough that sleeping on something even minutely firmer than his own mattress leaves him tied up like a fucking pretzel. 

Going by the way Eren seems to be moving with ease, it wasn’t the same for him. He sits up and rests his chin on Levi’s shoulder.

“Dr. Smith,” Eren states. “Our boss, Erwin Smith. Your ex, the chief of surgery. The man who owns my entire ass and future in medicine. Your ex. Asking for both of us.”

Levi swats him away. 

“Stop being so dramatic.” And then, slyly, “and I think you’ll find that _I_ own your ass, now.” 

His attempt at teasing goes completely unacknowledged and Levi frowns.

“Why aren’t _you_ being dramatic? What if he knows about us?”

Eren – like the absolute child he is – hides his face in the space between the muscles of Levi’s back. The lenses of his glasses press uncomfortably into his skin but Levi still shudders at the feel of his breath.

“Of course he knows,” Levi deadpans. “He knows everything.”

The resident whines. High pitched, pathetic, but somehow not enough for Levi to find annoying.  


Levi shifts, then, forcing Eren’s face from the dip between his shoulder blades. The loss of contact makes his back feel cold, his muscles flexing instinctively at the unwelcome chill. 

“C’mere.”

He curls a finger beneath Eren’s chin, guides his mouth toward his own. Kisses him for all of three seconds before he pushes him away. 

“Gross, you have morning breath.”

Eren’s jaw drops and he brings his knees to his chest and holds them there. 

“Sorry, Mr. Perfect, I should have known you were exempt from literally every human flaw,” he complains, before breathing subconsciously into the palm of his hand.

“Indeed, you should have,” Levi agrees. He stops, then, suddenly remembering something Eren had said the night that they fought outside Mikasa’s bar, the memory abrupt, slotting itself right at the precipice of his mind’s eye. “Hey, what was it you called me again?” he asks, shuffling closer on the bed. “Outside the bar, when we were arguing. It was something to do with surgery –,”

“The messiah of cardiothoracic surgery,” Eren interjects. He smirks at the bed sheets, clearly just as amused by the title as Levi was. 

“Yeah, that was it. I might have that put on my lab coat.”  


They laugh together, then, this harmonious sound that makes Levi feel lighter than air. 

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and right now is no exception. The moment is abruptly cut short by Kirstein, who calls his name from outside, having returned with Levi’s scrubs.

Levi opens the door, and once again, Kirstein gawks at his semi nakedness. 

“I didn’t know what size to get you,” he tells him. “So I got a small because I figured – well, I figured – y’know, you’re… quite small…”

He watches Kirstein fumble over the words, face growing redder by the second. He himself is expressionless, waiting patiently for the resident to finish thoroughly embarrassing himself. 

Eren, though – the little shit that he is – has the nerve to mutter “ _no he’s not_ ,” under his breath, but loud enough that both he and Kirstein are able to catch it. 

Levi’s nostrils flare and he presses his lips into a thin line. Stares Kirstein down in a silent dare to say something. 

When he simply stands there, looking utterly fucking mortified, Levi clears his throat. 

“Right. Fantastic job, Kirstein. Gold star.” 

He takes the folded bundle from his arms and shuts the door in his face once more.

*

Twenty five minutes later and they’re heading to Erwin’s office, having gotten dressed, brushed their teeth _and_ got coffee. 

Erwin didn’t like to be kept waiting, but, fuck him, as far as Levi is concerned. 

Eren won’t stop fidgeting in the lift, and it’s so bad that it makes Levi nervous. 

“Stop fucking twitching,” Levi snaps, fingers curling ever tighter around the cardboard sleeve of his latte. “You’re putting me on edge.”

Eren makes this little noise, something caught between a great sigh and a whine, and pulls irritably at the collar of his shirt. 

“I don’t know how you’re _not_ freaking out. Oh, wait, yes I do.” Levi cocks a questioning eyebrow at him. “I mean, you’re an attending, _and_ you used to screw the guy. That’s basically a get out of jail free card.” 

It’s a gross oversimplification and the crudeness of it has Levi rolling his eyes so hard that he’s sure he can see the inside of his skull. “That’s enough, Jaeger,” he warns, sipping his coffee and purposefully not looking at resident. He doesn’t need to, he can _feel_ the nervous energy emanating from him like a fucking heatwave. “I’ll remind you that I’m still your superior, even if you do know what I look like naked.” 

Eren downs the rest of his coffee like a shot and despite himself, Levi smirks.

The doors slide open and Eren makes a right show of letting Levi exit first. He bows, and extends his arm, 

“After you, _sir_.”

There’s something utterly thrilling in the thought that whilst Eren may be likely to dominate Levi in the bedroom, Levi’s authority still took precedence in almost any other capacity. For as long as they were required to address each other as Doctor, the buck stopped with him, and Eren would do well to remember it. 

Levi wonders, rather deviously, how different that might be when he’s finally got an ass stuffed full of his cock.  


Eren swallows hard when they finally reach Erwin’s door. Levi tells him not to be such a baby, and pushes past him without knocking.

Erwin looks up from where he’s sat behind his desk, phone pressed to his ear, and he holds up a finger, gesturing for them to wait. 

Here’s the thing – Erwin could be discussing flower arrangements and would still manage to look like he were having the most important conversation in the world. Comes hand in hand with being a self entitled prick. 

He finishes whatever mind numbingly boring discussion he’d been having, _“yes, indeed, quite so. I’ll get right on that,”_ and places the phone back against the receiver.  


Eren shifts his weight from one foot to another and Levi side eyes him.

“Good morning,” Erwin greets them, gesturing at the two empty chairs in front of him. “Please take a seat, both of you.” 

Levi obliges, (because his back aches and not because Erwin told him to), dropping elegantly into one of the seats and crossing one leg over the other. Eren does the same, but his movements are more clunky, and when he does sit down he looks rigid, back straight and hands clasped tightly in his lap. 

“So, I’m sure you’re wondering why I sent for you,” Erwin begins, flicking his wrist in a way that makes his stupid expensive watch jingle. 

Levi blinks. 

“Oh, please indulge us. The suspense is unbearable,” he deadpans.

Erwin clears his throat and leans forward. Folds his hands together and stares blankly at the desk before he looks up again, face unreadable even to Levi. Eren shifts uncomfortably. 

“It has come to my attention, Dr. Ackerman, that you recently performed surgery possibly under the influence and also concussed.” 

Time seems to slow down, a little – Levi is vaguely aware of Eren’s hand gripping the arm of his seat, and the sensation of his own knuckles turning white at his sides.  


Eren is saying something, but the sound is faraway, like he were underwater.

“What?” he finally says. 

Erwin blinks – opens his mouth to say something, but Levi is holding up a finger.

“No – I heard what you said. What the _fuck?_ ”  


He looks to Eren. All the colour has drained from his face.  


“What the fuck did you say?” he demands, and Eren is shaking his head, hands raised in defense. 

“I didn’t – I never said anything –,”

Levi’s mind reels. 

Eren had been the only one who knew Levi had hit his head that night. 

“Levi, how I came by this information is of little import. What matters now is getting the facts straight.” 

Levi turns on him. 

“Then why the fuck is _he_ here?” he snaps, gesturing toward Eren. 

“Because as I understand it, Dr. Jaeger was fully aware that you weren’t fit to operate. It’s better to iron this out before this goes to inquiry.”

Levi laughs, this angry, horrible laugh. 

“Inquiry? Are you fucking kidding me? You _knew_ I was operating that day, it was a successful surgery!”

Erwin braces his hands against the desk. 

“Levi, settle down. If you recall, I reassigned your surgery to Dr. Ral so you could attend the budget meeting, and you refused to accept it. If I’d have known how out of it you’d been the night before I’d never have allowed you to step foot inside an OR.” He pauses, and Levi can only gawk at the sheer injustice of it all. “There’s no need to overreact. If we can talk about this calmly, we might be able to straighten it out.” 

The room spins. He’s so fucking livid that it blurs the edges of his vision, makes him dizzy. 

“I need to know what happened,” Erwin says, slowly. Levi feels like a fucking teenager being reprimanded for stealing from the off license. “Did you or did you not hit your head the evening of the 14th?” 

His nostrils flare. Looks anywhere but Erwin’s stupid fucking face. 

“Yes,” he snarls. “But I _didn’t_ have a concussion.”

Erwin nods. “Is there anyone who can support that?” 

“Yes!” Eren suddenly yelps. “I can. He wasn’t concussed, chief, I assessed him myself.” 

“But you didn’t bring him in? How could you have been sure?” 

“Because I stayed with him that night. I watched him til morning.”

Something passes over Erwin’s face – a flicker of an emotion, not fully fleshed out. He leans back in his seat, regards Eren with this steely gaze. “And you’d be willing to go on record?”

“Jesus christ, Erwin – what are you, the fucking FBI?” says Levi, dragging a hand through his hair. “This is ridiculous. How many times over the years have we come into work after drinking till dawn? You’ve done it yourself, for christ sake.”

The piercing sound of the telephone ringing on Erwin’s desk pulls his focus for a split second, before he leans across to mute it. “This isn’t about me,” he simply states, and that in itself has Levi angrily grinding away at his teeth. “And for the record, I’ve never gotten so blackout drunk that I’ve passed out, hit my head and then gone on to operate the very next morning. You might be good at what you do, Levi, but even you can make mistakes.”

Levi fumes. 

“Except I _didn’t_ , did I? That woman is alive and well. You’re blowing this completely out of proportion because you’ve got a fucking agenda, and you know it.”

Erwin purses his lips.

“I – I would be willing, sir. To go on record,” Eren is saying. Levi throws a hand up in exasperation.

“No, you aren’t,” says Levi. “Don’t buy into this bullshit.” 

The room falls silent, for a moment. Erwin closes his eyes, brings his fingers to his lips. When he opens them again, he sighs. 

“Alright. I’ve heard enough.”

Levi scoffs. “So what? You’re going to take this to inquiry so you can try and flush my career down the toilet?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Erwin deadpans. “You’re an accomplished surgeon. Whatever the outcome of this turns out to be will be barely a mark against your name.”

“But it _will_ be against my name, won’t it?”  


Erwin shifts, fingers coming up to fiddle with his tie. 

“Your actions have consequences. Perhaps it’s a good thing that you decided to give up your position as head of cardio, else I might have had to take it away from you.”

He can feel Eren bristle against him. Knows he wants to say something but is smart enough to know better, for now. Levi had been conveniently _forgetting_ to tell Eren that he’d stepped down to avoid having to explain why.

“You’re both dismissed, for now,” Erwin tells them, tapping his finger against his desk with a touch of finality.

Levi tears himself from where he’s sat, knocking his empty coffee cup flying as he goes. Doesn’t bother picking it up.

“Oh, and one more thing,” Erwin says, suddenly. Levi clenches and unclenches his fist as he turns around. “I trust that you’re fully aware of the hospital’s stance on relationships between residents and attendings. Although not forbidden, it is highly discouraged. Any official relationships should be declared.”

Levi sticks his tongue in to his cheek and slowly shakes his head at the ceiling. Doesn’t bother justifying Erwin with a response before he flings the door back open onto the corridor. 

Eren follows quietly behind him. 

Once outside, Levi rounds on him. 

“What the _fuck_ , Eren?” he demands, inches from his face. “How would he have found out about that?”  


Eren is still pallid, and he swallows. “Levi, I didn’t – I promise you I didn’t tell him –,”

“Then who did you tell? Because you’re the only person who knew I hit my head that night.” 

The resident looks to his feet. Drags a hand through his hair and then looks back up and off to the side. Anywhere but Levi’s face. 

“I… I mentioned it to Jean. Maybe he said something to someone else, I…” 

Levi snorts. Throws a hand up in disbelief. “Of course you did.” 

Eren takes a step closer to Levi, extends a hand. Thinks better of it. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, and Levi laughs. 

“You’re sorry. Oh, that’s good, then. Now I don’t have to worry about the fucking _black mark_ against my medical license.” 

The corridor outside Erwin’s office is still empty at this time of the morning, thank God, but with just the two of them stood here like this, it feels infinitely larger. Their voices echo off the walls, mockingly, and Levi reels. 

“Fucking unbelievable,” he breathes. 

Eren looks like he’s about to cry and honestly, that just pisses Levi off even more. 

The sound of somebody running toward them is enough to invoke a ceasefire, for now. Levi turns his head to the direction of the hurried footsteps, just as Dr. Artlett rounds the corner. 

“Dr. Ackerman,” he pants, leaning over to rest his hands against his knees. “Jean said you’d be here. I’ve been trying to page you.” 

Levi breathes hard through his nose. Fuck. He’d left his pager in the pocket of his old scrubs. 

“What is it?” 

The resident sucks in a shaky breath. “It’s Luca Marcinelli. He’s in the ER, he was in cardiac arrest – I managed to bring him back down but I think you should come take a look.” 

Jesus fuck, he can’t catch a break. 

Levi doesn’t even cast a parting glance at Eren as he bolts down the hallway. Finds he can’t quite bear to look at his face.  


*

Luca’s mother is practically hissing at Levi.

“Is it the meds you prescribed?” she demands, clinging on to Luca’s arm. “What’s wrong with my child? He was fine until he came here!”

Luca’s out, for now, and Levi places an oxygen mark gently over his little face to aid his shuddering breaths. 

“I need to run some tests but I highly doubt it’s the medication, Mrs. Marcinelli.” He looks to Eren – technically, Luca was his patient, too, so he’d run after Levi down the hall, despite the horrible awkwardness that moves like static between them.

“Get me an echo and a chest X ray and page me when you’ve done it,” he instructs, and Eren nods. 

Levi turns his attention back to Mrs. Marcinelli, diving his hands into his pockets. “Your child wasn’t fine when you first brought him in,” he states. “In fact, we should count ourselves lucky that he came down with the pleurisy, else we might not have found the cardiomyopathy. He has a disease of the heart muscle, Mrs. Marcinelli, specifically his left ventricle. He wasn’t fine, but we told you with proper treatment and medication, that he _would_ be fine.” 

The mother narrows her eyes at him suspiciously, fingers curling tightly around the forearm of her child. “What are you trying to say?” 

With the way his morning seems to be going, Levi has to physically reel himself in. Remind himself that he’s still a Doctor and that shouting at the parents of your patients for being unbearably obtuse was still completely unacceptable. The muscle works in his jaw and he digs his finger nails into the heels of his hands inside his pocket. 

“I’ll know more when I have the test results,” he says, just about managing to keep his voice on an even keel. “I will keep you updated.”

This seems to placate Mrs. Marcinelli, for now, even if she does glare at him from beneath a veil of thick black lashes. Levi directs his attention to Eren. 

“Outside,” he says. “Now.” 

The resident follows him, and once the door is safely shut, Levi sighs.

“She hasn’t been giving him his meds. I need the echo to show the extent of the damage.” 

Eren directs his gaze through the window, watches Mrs. Marcinelli fawning over Luca.

“How do you know?” 

“Because I do,” Levi snaps. Eren actually flinches and it sends a stab of guilt straight to Levi’s heart. He continues, marginally softer, this time. “Once we get results we’ll need to contact child services. She might not be directly abusing him but denying him of medication is still a form of neglect.” 

"Shit. It’s only been a few weeks since we saw him. Could it really have gotten bad enough to put him in cardiac arrest that quickly?”

“It’s rare, but not unheard of. Especially if he’s been left unmedicated.” Levi glances at his watch. “I’m going to check my post op from yesterday. Text me the _second_ you have Luca’s results.”

Eren nods. Levi turns on his heel and Eren stands there like a fish out of water. “Levi –,”

“Not now, Jaeger. Be a Doctor and focus on your patient.” Levi makes to leave, and then hesitates. “And it’s _Dr. Ackerman_.”

Eren clears his throat. “Yes, sir.”

*

Levi hides in the skills lab.

One piece of good news is that the gentleman who’s chest he had removed the road barrier from is doing well.

So, that’s something.

A big something, really, because when Levi looks at his hands, he remembers them all. 

He sits with his head in said hands, digs his fingers so far into his hair that if he pulled hard enough he’d tear it right out. It’s oddly comforting, and Levi blinks back the memory of Eren’s hands curling around the back of his head, deft fingers running through the short bristles of his undercut.

Blinks it away because it stings.

He’s waiting for Luca’s test results, but he already knows what the outcome will be.

The echo will show that his heart is overworked. Without the medication to aid the contraction and dilation of his blood vessels, the muscle is failing. 

The fact that his sudden cardiac arrest was entirely preventable makes Levi’s skin crawl. 

He’s so lost in thought that when the door swings open, Levi jumps.

“Oh, my dear.”

Hanji’s at his side in seconds, and Levi shakes his head.

“Don’t pity me,” he tells them, face a perfect picture of refined indifference. “It’ll only piss me off even more.”  


Levi had text them only minutes before:

_Erwin’s launching an inquiry against me._

“What on earth is going on?” they ask, dumping their bag against the table and pulling up a stool. Hanji talks as though the place were wired, all hushed and careful and Hell, maybe it was. 

Levi tells Hanji what had happened that morning; how Erwin was a royal fucking asshole with a stick up his backside and a vendetta against Levi for no apparent reason other than having the nerve to finally move on from him, and how Eren had been the one to unintentionally drop him right in it. 

Look – he hadn’t thought that to be true until this morning. 

However, in the face of new evidence, Erwin clearly had issues with his relationship with Eren. 

It’s ridiculous and makes Levi’s jaw clench every time he thinks about it. 

“I don’t understand,” Hanji is saying. “Why is he making such a big deal of this? You said it yourself; if we’re being honest, how many times have we practiced medicine when we probably shouldn’t have? You clearly weren’t concussed, I mean – you’re a doctor, you’d know if you had a concussion, even without Eren confirming.”

Levi shrugs. “And apparently I was still drunk when I operated.” The ridiculousness of it knocks the air from his lungs all over again. “Fucking hell. What kind of whack job does he think I am? As if I’d open someone up still shit faced.”

Hanji places a hand over his shoulder, worries their bottom lip with their teeth. “I can’t accept that he’ll go through with this. I know Erwin can be a dick but this is something else,” they say, and Levi cocks an eyebrow.

“I wouldn’t be surprised anymore. Jesus – he _saw_ me that morning, he knows I was sober.”

There’s quiet, then – the only sound to interrupt the silence is the ticking of Levi’s watch, and he glances at it. They’ll have Luca’s test results soon, which means he’s probably got less than an hour before he has to call child services. 

“Levi… you know this isn’t Eren’s fault, right?” Hanji says eventually, slowly – as though they were taking care to pick their words. “Don’t punish him for this.” 

Levi’s stool scrapes nauseatingly against the floor as he pushes back from the table. 

“Look, I don’t want to talk about Eren. He might not have meant to, but he’s inadvertently tarnished my medical license for the rest of my surgical career.” 

Hanji curls a hand around his wrist. “No.” 

Levi narrows his eyes. “Sorry?”

“No. I’m going to talk to Erwin. This isn’t fair. He’s messing with your career and your relationships. I won’t have it, not after all the fuss it took to get you here.”

Levi cocks an eyebrow and feels his phone vibrate against his leg. Makes a mental note to find his damn pager before the scrub bin gets emptied. “Feel free, though I doubt it will change anything.”

_**8:23 eren jaeger [:** : luca’s results are back, i think you were right  
**8:23 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD** : I’m coming._

He bids Hanji goodbye and leaves with their promise to intervene. Tells them that’ll it won’t do any good but knows that it can’t make things any worse than they already are, at least. 

It’s comforting to know Hanji’s got his back. It makes him feel a little less alone, even if it changes nothing.  


Levi takes the elevator down to Luca’s room. True to the general theme of his day so far, Petra’s in there, blonde hair pulled into bunches and she’s got her hand in a bag of strawberry laces. 

He doesn’t want to talk to anyone else, not right now, certainly not to make small talk that he couldn’t give a single shit about. 

“Hello,” she smiles at him, shoelace hanging from her lips. 

Levi nods at her and Petra shoves the rest of the sugary sweet in her mouth all at once. 

“Hey,” she probes. “Everything okay?” 

He’s stood next to her, hands in his pockets, eyes fixed on the little digital window counting down the floors. 

“Absolutely fantastic.”

She shuffles closer, angles herself to look at his face. “Hmm,” she hums, tilting her head to regard him. Levi can see her purse her lips.

Luckily, Petra is clever enough to take a hint. 

She stands back, then, stretches out her hand.

Levi doesn’t look at her as he sifts a strawberry lace from the packet.

The elevator dings and Petra pats him affectionately on the shoulder as she leaves. “Always did have a sweet tooth,” she says, and then she’s gone, hurrying down the hallway to where ever it was she was needed.

He bites the thing, a little too aggressively, and seconds later is getting off on his own floor.

*

Eren stands behind him as Levi looks over Luca’s results.  


He can _feel_ Eren’s presence – it’s this nervous energy behind him, Levi feels it move between them like interference.

“You’re wondering how I knew,” Levi says. He might be mad at Eren but first and foremost he and was a resident and Trost Medical was a teaching hospital. 

“Intuition?” Eren ventures. Here’s the thing – if Levi had learned anything about Eren it was that the kid wore his heart on his sleeve. The word falls out of him in an exhale, as though he’d been holding his breath the entire time.

Levi hums. “You could call it that,” he replies, leaning back in his chair and bringing his fingers to his lips in thought. “There’s simply no way the left ventricle could have deteriorated this quickly if he was taking the ACE inhibitors.”

Levi glances over his shoulder and catches Eren staring at him. 

Eren immediately looks back at the screens and flushes.  


“I’ll go speak to Mrs. Marcinelli,” Levi says, pushing back from the desk. Ignores the way his joints creak as he goes, and hopes for the sake of embarrassment that Eren hadn’t noticed.

The resident makes to follow him and Levi holds out a hand. “Alone,” he adds. Eren stops dead in his tracks and Levi sighs. “I don’t need an audience when I ask her why she’s been depriving her child of life saving medication.” 

“Right. Yeah.”

Eren tenses – if it’s even possible to tense any more, he’s been rigid since this morning, moves like a fucking robot every time Levi’s nearby – and Levi exhales loudly through his nose. 

“Okay,” he says, finally. “Get it off your chest. Say whatever it is you need to say to me, and then please, stop acting like I fucking killed your dog or something.”  


The resident opens his mouth, then closes it again, and Levi tips his chin toward the ceiling as though he might find some patience in the crackling paint. 

“Spit it _out._ " 

Eren crosses his arms over his chest and swallows. 

“I think you’re being unfair.”  


Ha.

“Oh, you do?” Levi challenges. 

“Yeah. I think you know this isn’t my fault but you want to be mad at someone other than yourself.”

Oh, boy. Levi feels the foundations of his resolve crumble away, and he’d only just finished putting it back together again. 

“I see.” Levi raises an eyebrow, daring Eren to carry on. “Got me all figured out, have you?”

The words seem to breathe a renewed sense of bravery into Eren. 

“With respect, sir, _you’re_ the one who got drunk enough to knock yourself unconscious with a scheduled surgery the following morning, not me. Maybe in hindsight, you shouldn’t have.” Eren pauses, drags a hand through his hair. Pushes his glasses up his nose. Levi watches him, fingers curled around the door handle tight enough to bleach the skin across his knuckles. “I’m _sorry_ that I told Jean what happened, I really am, I should have thought about it getting out the way it did. But I won’t apologize for Dr. Smith blowing it out of proportion, sir, because that wasn’t my fault. You two clearly have some unresolved issues and I don’t know what’s going on there, but it’s nothing to do with me.” Eren pauses, eyebrows knitting together in frustration. 

The accusation hits Levi like a ton of fucking bricks. He’d spent forever licking the wounds that Erwin had left, and just as he seemed to be finding happiness, the man had come crashing back in like a wrecking ball. 

The thought that Erwin was messing with him like this because he didn’t like the idea of him finally moving on makes Levi sick. It fits his God complex perfectly – Erwin enjoyed being the most important person in the room.  


Everything snaps into focus all at once. 

Even down to offering Levi the role of cardio head. It made perfect sense. He’d wanted to keep him close, under his thumb. Close enough to keep the wounds open. To let them fester. 

He doesn’t want Erwin, hasn’t for a long time.

Apparently, it didn’t matter. 

“I said I would go on record that I thought you were fit to operate, and I meant it. So – please, sir. Just give me a break. Figure out whatever it is you need to with Dr. Smith, but don’t blame me for this.”

Levi swallows around the sudden lump in his throat. Feels like a fucking fool. Wants to tell Eren that he’s got it wrong, that it wasn’t complicated. 

That it didn’t _have_ to be complicated. 

“Are you finished?” is what he says in place of all that.  


Eren looks him right in the eyes and shakes his head, clearly disappointed. 

He's never quite looked at Levi that way before, not even when they fought outside the bar. 

“Yeah,” Eren sighs. “I’m finished.”

Levi nods, and is aware of little else until he’s back out onto the corridor and heading to the next miserable item on the morning’s bleak itinerary.


	8. you reap what you sow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this is a bit of a filler chapter cus i already started working on the next one n i think its gonna take a while?? idk
> 
> also just wanted to say every kudos, every comment u guys leave is so appreciated!! thanks for reading this hot mess of a fic 🥺

Calling child services was never a nice thing to do.  


The conversation with Mrs. Marcinelli had been awful; the woman had accused Levi of falsifying scans to make her look like a bad mother. 

He hadn’t expected it to go well, as such – but he hadn’t seen that coming. It doesn’t matter; the evidence was clear enough to him and it would be to child services too. They’d arranged to come and speak with Mrs. Marcinelli later that day.

The problem now, though, is that Levi still needed her permission to operate on Luca.

The damage to his heart was severe, and he needed to open him up to place a biventricular pacemaker. He tells her that without it Luca’s chances of survival are slim, and the woman laughs at him.

“I want a different Doctor,” she’s telling him, and Levi nods.

“That’s not a problem. I’ll get you a different Doctor, but I can promise you that they’ll tell you the exact same thing that I am.”

Mrs. Marcinelli tells him to leave and Levi obliges.  


He immediately pages Petra, and it’s only minutes before she responds. 

“Wassup, chuck?” comes her lilted voice from behind him. 

She leans over his shoulder as Levi wordlessly brings up Luca’s scans.

“Ouch,” she says, dropping instantly in to the empty chair next to him. “That’s a nasty case of DCM. Why do you need me for it?”

Levi sighs. “The mother won’t let me touch it.”

Petra frowns. “Oh. How old?”

“Four.”

“Only four? Jesus. That’s advanced.”

She falls silent, and Levi enlarges the image in front of them. 

“He needs cardiac resynchronization. The mother hasn’t been giving him the ACE inhibitors and now thinks I’ve falsified the scans.”

There’s the sound of rustling, then – and Levi glances down to see Petra’s hand hidden in her pocket. 

“Parma violets,” she explains, catching the bemused look on his face. “I can’t stop craving sugar. Seriously, morning, afternoon, night – my teeth are going to fall out.”

Levi cocks an eyebrow at her, suggestively, and Petra rolls her eyes. 

“Don’t start. I’ve not had sex since I moved out.”

Levi snorts at her honesty. “My thoughts are with you during this difficult time.”

“Shut up,” Petra says, swatting him around the ear. “You’ve not been getting laid either.”

Well, she’s right. Levi hums in agreement, taps his finger against the desk. Petra leans in. 

“We could help each other out,” she whispers, batting her eyelashes at him. 

The suggestion has Levi pushing her away with a palm flat against her face. 

“Fuck off. You’re unbelievable.”

Petra scrunches her face up in laughter against his hand. 

“The look on your face, though. Priceless,” she laughs. Levi tells her – for the billionth time – that he doesn’t find her funny, and Petra calls him a liar. 

The scans still sit forebodingly in front of them, and eventually, she sighs. 

“So you want me to operate?” 

Levi nods the affirmative and Petra taps her finger against her chin. 

“What’s in it for me?” She raises an eyebrow, popping another parma violet between her lips. 

“The knowledge that you’d be helping a very sick child.”  


Petra doesn’t need convincing, Levi knows. Still, she loved messing with him, and right now, it’s a temporary reprieve.

“Hmm. If only I were a decent person.”

“I just gave you my job,” Levi deadpans. “This is the least you could do for me.” 

Petra pouts. “You _could_ tell me why you’ve got such a bee in your bonnet.” 

There it is. Levi groans and closes Luca’s scans from the screen.

“Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

Clearly having none of it, Petra grabs the arm of Levi’s chair and spins him around to face her. 

“Trust me, I do,” she insists. “I’ve got absolutely nothing interesting happening in my life right now. Spill the tea.”  


She fixes him with this determined stare and Levi twitches. 

He couldn’t tell her about the inquiry – the less people who knew about that, the better. Even so, Petra’s just easy to talk to, even without the weird knack she seemed to have for always getting Levi to do what she wanted, one way or another. She’s sly, and clever, and Levi respects her for it. 

“It’s Eren,” he tells her. 

“Oooh,” she marvels. “An Eren problem. I mean, there are worse problems to have.”

“He thinks I’m still caught up with Erwin.” 

“Are you?”

“Fuck, no. I’m not. I’m caught up with _Eren_.”

“Have you told him that?”

“Yes! I’ve told him.”

The strange back and forth feels like a fucking tennis match. Levi is fast, but Petra is faster. 

“On a scale of one to ten, how caught up are you?”

“Christ, I’m not putting a number on it. That’s stupid.”

“Well,” Petra sighs, leaning her chin against her knuckles. “There’s your problem.”

Levi frowns. “Come again?”

Her face drops – she looks at Levi as though he were the slowest person in the world. “How is he supposed to know how much you like him if you can’t even say it?”

“Yeah, well, I’m kind of pissed off at him right now. Don’t give me that look – I’m not telling you why. It’s hard to tell someone that you’re mad _about_ them when you’re mad _at_ them.”

“Stop being mad at him, then. Life is short, Levi, and you aren’t getting any younger.”  


Levi blinks at her. 

“Anywhooo,” she suddenly sighs, springing from her chair. “I’ll do the surgery. I’m guessing you need me to go speak to the mother?”

Petra sees the world in black and white and Levi is swimming in shades of grey. 

“Yes,” he says, turning in his chair to track her as she walks across the room toward the door. “Let’s hope she likes you more than she likes me.”

“Oh, Levi,” Petra drawls. “Everybody likes me more than they like you.”

With that, she winks, leaving Levi with this sinking feeling in his gut that perhaps Erwin wasn’t the only one guilty of blowing things out of proportion.

*

It’s almost six pm when Levi’s suturing a head lac in the ER. 

The head of trauma had come down with a twenty four hour bug and as such, it was all hands on deck. It’s probably a good thing; the chaos meant that Levi had little time to think about how he might have skewered his chances with Eren, or the fact that Erwin was on a warpath. 

He’s trying so hard not to be mad. 

Hanji was right – it isn’t Eren’s fault that Erwin has a personal fucking vendetta against Levi. He couldn’t have predicted this.

Still, though, it fucking stings, how he’d thought Eren had kept his secret, only to find out he’d told loud mouth Jean Kirstein of all people. 

He’s suturing a young woman – Anastasia Strong, 20 years old, she’d split her head open playing ice hockey. She watches Levi with these big, shiny eyes; he’s not sure if the pain meds had made her a little foggy or if she was just wired from the adrenalin, but she watches him, looks up to track the movement of his gloved hands as he works on the four inch gash above her right eyebrow.

“You’re very handsome,” she tells him, and the corner of Levi’s mouth tips up in a smirk. “Will I have an ugly scar after this?”

“Lucky for you, I’m very good at sutures. It’ll barely leave a mark.” 

“So I’ll still be pretty?” 

Levi laughs. “Yes. You’ll still be pretty.”

She smiles at him. 

“Is it, like, a rule that you have to be really good looking to become a doctor?” Levi’s about to make a comment about the pain meds making her a little loose lipped when she’s pointing over his shoulder. “Cause there’s another really pretty one staring at you over there.”

Levi stills for a fraction of a second before continuing the suture. 

“Is he tall with brown hair?” he asks.

Anastasia glances back at him. 

“Taller than you, for sure.”

“I can make this hurt, you know," threatens Levi. 

She grins and Levi tries not to let his face betray his amusement. 

“Is he your boyfriend?” 

Well, is he? 

“What makes you say that?”

“Because of the way he’s looking at you. You don’t look that way at someone who you don’t love.”

The words make his chest feel tight and he’s shaking his head. _Love._ The idea of it feels so alien that Levi wonders if he’s still capable of something so rudimentary, so basic. It’s a self pitying, miserable thought, and he mentally berates himself for it.

“Alright,” he says, snipping the final suture. “You’re all done.”

Anastasia pouts. “Really? I’d sooner stay here and stare at all this eye candy than go home. Can’t you admit me for observation, or something?”

“No, I can’t. You don’t need observing.” Levi peels the gloves from his hands and pushes back on the wheeled stool he sits upon. He cocks a questioning eyebrow at her. “No one ever wants to stay in hospital longer than they have to.”

Disappointed, Anastasia folds her arms over her chest. “Well, maybe they don’t have beautiful Doctors.”

“Then you’ll be pleased to know that you have to come back in a week so I can remove the sutures.” 

Levi tries not to look over his shoulder, but Anastasia's waving, slow and dopey.

He turns – but Eren’s already busying himself, picking up a chart and studying it diligently. He’s still wearing his glasses, and the things slip to the end of his nose. 

“Oh,” says Anastasia. “Not good, then?” 

Levi sighs. “I’ll go get your discharge papers.” 

Eren’s turned his attention to a patient who seems to be a little worse for wear. He’s clearly intoxicated; there’s vomit down the front of his jacket and he keeps trying to get down off the bed. Eren manhandles him, and Levi just catches the end of the conversation as he passes them –

“Sir, please, you need to stay still so I can examine you –,”

“ – get your hands off me, I’m fine –,”

“ – you’re not _fine_ , just lay back –,”

_Crash._

Levi spins around at the nurses station, dropping his discharge papers against the worktop.

Eren’s on his ass, his patient using the opportunity to make a run for it. Levi’s hurries over, barking orders at an intern to get security. 

“Alright?” he asks, hauling the resident up by the hand. Eren rubs his backside, and Levi bends down to collect up the various items strewn across the floor when Eren had been pushed into the supply cart.

“Fine,” Eren says, looking anywhere but Levi’s face. He helps to pick everything up, places the cart back on it’s feet. 

“You need me to help you with him?” Levi asks. Eren visibly frowns. 

“It’s fine, I’ve got it.” 

He hurries out of the ER after his patient, leaving Levi to the inquisitive eyes of everyone else – especially Anastasia, who watches him with this pained look on her face, and Levi just knows that it’s not because of the laceration. 

Levi’s been drafting the same text to Eren for the past hour.

Between Hanji, Petra, and his head lac patient – he’s starting to realise perhaps he’d made a mistake by blaming Eren for what had happened. 

Hanji had told him not to punish Eren for something that he couldn’t control. Petra had told him to just be honest about how he felt. Head lac girl had suggested Eren was _in love with him._

He’s at home, having finally clocked out after almost two days on the go, nursing a glass of wine and petting Luna as she sleeps soundly over his lap. 

Really, that had been down to Petra. She’d all but ordered him to leave when she realized he hadn’t been home in nearly forty eight hours, under the threat that she’d have him ‘removed from the premises’, because she could do that now since she was head of cardio and therefore ‘in charge of him’.  


Well, he should’ve seen that coming, he supposes.

_Did you find your patient in the end?_

… Is what he wants to send. Deletes it entirely and sighs.  


_You were right when you said it wasn’t your fault._  


Deletes that too, for reasons unknown.

Freezes as his phone vibrates in his hand. 

_**21:03 eren jaeger [:** : i can see you typing sir…_

Levi curses. He’d been caught red handed.  
He hesitates. Fucking wishes he could swallow his pride enough to apologize, but hates - _hates_ the thought of giving Eren the upper hand. Promised himself a long time ago that no one would ever have the upper hand over him again.

He swallows hard. That had been because of Erwin, and this was Eren. Levi knows at the very least, he owes him the kindness of treating him as the entirely different person that he is.

Wonders if Hanji had spoken to Erwin yet – he hadn’t heard anything from them since this morning, which was rare, so assumes they must be tied up in surgery. Wishes Eren had been tied up too to save him from the embarrassment of being caught trying to find something to say.

Four minutes pass in which Levi stares at his phone. Mentally drafts a thousand different replies, so that Eren couldn’t catch him stalling again. 

_**21:08 eren jaeger [:** : what happened with luca?_

Thank God. 

At least they had something to talk about other than the mess in which they currently find themselves. 

_**21:09 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD** : Mother wouldn’t let me operate so I had Dr. Ral place the pacemaker. Child services are handing Luca over to his paternal aunt, for now. He’s ok.  
_ _**21:10 eren jaeger [:** : good, im glad. hes lucky to have had you as his doctor. someone else might not have realized what was going on_  
**_21:11 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD_** _: Unfortunately, I’ve seen enough cases of child abuse to be able to spot it._  
**_21:11 eren jaeger [:_** _: i see :/_  
**_21:12 eren jaeger [:_** _im sorry if i overstepped the mark today_

Oh, fuck. It’s not supposed to be Eren apologizing. Levi drops his head against the back of the couch and groans.  


Why did he always have to be so self sacrificing? 

_**21:14 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD** : Fuck. Don’t apologize again._  
_**21:14 eren jaeger [:** ?? wym_  
**_21:14 eren jaeger [:_** _: (that means what do you mean)_  
**_21:15 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD_** _: It wasn’t your fault._

_eren jaeger [: is typing…_

_**21:16 eren jaeger [:** : i know dr smith being an ass wasn’t my fault. i meant for what i said about the two of you_

Levi knocks back the last dregs of his wine and drags a tired hand through his hair. 

**_21:17 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD_ ** _: I’m saying don’t apologize for anything. I reacted badly. Everything you said was entirely reasonable._

It’s true – he had reacted badly. But when Erwin had accused him, he’d felt like a cornered rat. 

_**21:18 eren jaeger [:** : so….._  
**_21:18 eren jaeger [:_ ** _: are you still in love with dr smith? bc if so i need to know_

Levi cringes. 

_**21:19 Dr Levi Ackerman** : Whilst I don’t think this is a conversation fit for text message, I need you to understand that my relationship with Dr. Smith is completely professional. It has been for a long time._

He breathes hard through his nose. Curls his fingers a little tighter around the neck of the empty wine glass.

_**21:20 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD** : If you want to talk, feel free to come over._  
**_21:21 eren jaeger [:_ ** _: now???_  
_**21:22 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD** : Now. If you want to._

Luna stirs in his lap and it’s enough to pull Levi’s attention from the screen of his phone. He scratches beneath her chin, and she purrs happily, completely unaware of the primetime drama that seems to have taken over her owner’s life. 

It’s a bit ridiculous, all this. 

Levi chews the inside of his cheek as he waits for Eren to reply. 

Eventually, his phone vibrates. He’s not sure if the two words that Eren has sent makes him feel relieved or disappointed. 

**_21:23 eren jaeger [:_ ** _: i can’t_

It’s definitely disappointment. 

_**21:24 eren jaeger [:** : its not that i don’t want to. its just that my head is still foggy and i don’t know if i can be around you and still say everything i want to say _

_**21:25 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD** : I understand._

Levi’s heart sinks a little – even so, it makes perfect sense. He’d chewed Eren out this morning and the kid probably didn’t want Levi to think that every time that he said ‘jump’, that Eren would respond with ‘how high?’ 

Eren is typing something but Levi doesn’t wait to see what it is. He locks his phone, before shoving it down the side of the cushions. Rests the empty wine glass on the floor, and then shifts, bundling Luna into his chest as he lays down. 

Curls into himself against the pillows, and lets the dull chatter of the TV lull him into a restless sleep, the ache of regret burrowing itself deep into his bones. 

It’s the very least that he deserves. 


	9. the grapes, eren!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one didnt end up as long as i thought it would lol oh well

The thing about having a reputation for being cut throat is seeming disingenuous. 

Levi thinks perhaps he’s getting softer as the years go by, but perhaps others would say he’s getting more impatient –

Either way, he’s never found he cared that much until Eren Jaeger came tearing into his life like a bullet in a China shop. He’d meant it when he told Eren that he didn’t have to apologize for anything.

Even so, it’s been seven whole days since he and Eren last spoke.

Levi had awoken the morning after abandoning his phone down the side of the couch to the text that Eren had been in the middle of typing: 

_it doesn’t mean that i don’t want you. i just need time_

And so Levi was giving it to him. They’d barely shared so much as a passing glance in the hallway. 

Yesterday, Levi had seen him running toward the ER, haphazardly shoveling half a sandwich down his throat as he went. It was funny, and Levi wanted to text him about it, something like _that’s a good way to get indigestion_ , or something like that – but instead just stares blankly at their message thread for a whole fifteen minutes before he dismisses the idea. Doesn’t want Eren to feel suffocated. 

He wishes there was a work related reason to talk to him. 

Luca Marcinelli was recovering well. Petra had repaired the damage to his heart and placed the biventricular pacemaker, and so (thankfully) there was little to discuss there. 

Levi had heard of a rumor circulating that Jean Kirstein had been sleeping with one of the dermatology students – _and_ word on the grapevine was that Eren’s sister Mikasa was coming by the hospital almost daily to visit Annie Leonhart, a hard working fellow with a particular gift for neuro. They’d met when Annie had stopped by the bar with her friends, at Eren’s recommendation, and Mikasa’s been courting her ever since. It’s sickeningly sweet, but Levi sincerely hopes _not_ to bump into Eren’s sister in the hallways; their last meeting hadn’t exactly ended well, so to speak. Not to mention Eren’s probably confided in her over everything that had happened since, so it’s probably safe to assume she isn’t Levi’s biggest fan right now.  


So, stuff was happening, just not to _him_ , and Levi would be damned if he engaged in idle gossip just to have a reason to talk to Eren.

And anyway, Eren had specifically asked for time. It would be selfish of Levi to deny him of that. 

… It still fucking gnaws away at him, though. Every time he turns a corner he’s hoping Eren’s there, each time the doors open to the elevator.

He’s never spent so much time thinking about one person, maybe not even Erwin. 

One week after Erwin’s accusation, (and, as such, one week since Eren had turned down his offer to talk), Levi is hosting a pulmonary laceration suture workshop when Hanji pokes their head through the door. 

“Do you have a minute, Dr. Ackerman?” 

Levi looks up toward the doorway, the magnifying glasses making everything horribly blurry. Still, he knows that voice. 

“Can it wait? I’m teaching.” 

The outline of Hanji moves slightly, and Levi huffs, removing the glasses from his nose. 

Their face is slightly puffy, and Levi narrows his eyes at her. They’d been crying.

He drops his utensils. “I’ll be back in a moment,” he tells his class. “Continue without me.”

Levi exits the room, waits until the door is shut behind him before he turns to Hanji. They’d not been crying too recently – perhaps in the last hour or so, going by the slightly faded red marks around their cheeks. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks, concern rising to the surface of his skin in rivulets. 

“I lost a patient. Well, we lost a patient. Mike, Eren and I. And now I can’t find Eren." Levi falters – opens his mouth to say something, then changes his mind. Hanji sniffles. “I thought maybe you might know where he was.”

Levi shakes his head. “When did you last see him?” 

“A couple of hours ago – he was in a bit of a state. He’s not due to finish until later tonight. I went looking for him when he didn’t answer my pages.”

They sigh, crows feet pinching the skin at the corner of their eyes, tired and looking a little sore. 

“It’s alright, I’ll see if any of his friends have heard from him.” 

Levi pushes the door to the skills lab back open to check on the interns. No one’s stabbed anyone, yet, thankfully. 

“I’ll see if I can find him,” Levi tells Hanji, pulling the door closed once more. “But yeah, do that too. Hey – are _you_ alright?”

Hanji shrugs.

“Hardly my first rodeo,” they say, and Levi nods knowingly as Hanji hurries back down the corridor.

Levi tells his interns to continue practicing without him, and that he’d be back within the hour to check their work. Sets the incentive that whomever produces the highest amount of clean sutures can scrub in on his next surgery.

It’s probably nothing. Eren’s likely just hiding in an on call room till he feels well enough to face the world again. It happens to the very best of surgeons.

Still, the thought of him alone, feeling the most helpless a person was capable of feeling – it sets something off in Levi, something foreign. Has him cutting half moons into the palms of his hands as he navigates the twisting halls.  


He calls his phone, but Eren doesn’t pick up. 

Sends him a text that reads:

_I hear you’ve done a disappearing act. Please let me know that you’re okay._

The on call rooms are bare, save for a couple doctors passed out in a bunk here and there, but definitely no sign of Eren. The residents lounge is empty, as is the cafeteria. 

Levi checks six different toilet blocks before he’s starting to lose hope. 

Finally, as if he’d read Levi’s mind, Eren calls.  


The phone only rings twice before Levi’s holding it to his ear. 

“Eren?” he breathes, stopping dead in his tracks in the ICU. “Are you alright?”

The kid is weeping down the line and Levi’s mouth goes dry. 

_“I’m – I’m okay, sir, I just – I didn’t mean to worry you.”_

Levi swallows. Leans against the wall, sticks a finger over his left ear to dampen the noise of the ICU. 

“You lost a patient, I know. Hanji told me.”

Eren chokes. 

_“Feels too much like Haley Michaels.”_

Levi squeezes his eyes shut and scratches absently at the base of skull. Breathes down the line, hopes the sound will help to calm Eren, even if only a little. The name Haley Michaels has become a buzzword. He’s heard the staff on peds using it to signify when they needed to detach themselves, for the sake of their own emotional and mental wellbeing. 

“Tell me where you are.”

Eren sniffles. 

“ _I just wanted to let you know I was alright – I’ll be fine in a minute –,”_

“ – Eren.”

It’s a single word; a warning, his voice dropping in octave enough for the resident to fall silent.  


Then, a deep intake of breath. 

“ _I’m on the neonatal ward. Room 112.”_

“Stay there. I’m on my way.”

He hangs up the phone, sending a text to Hanji as he calls the elevator.

_**15:17 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD** : Eren called. He’s okay._  
_**15:17 Hanji Zoe ~saving lives, eating fries~ ^.^** : oh good!!! where was he??_  
_**15:18 Dr Levi Ackerman, MD** : Neonatal. I’m going to check on him now._

When he reaches neonatal, he jogs to the room Eren had specified.

Stops just outside the door. Considers knocking but thinks better of it.

“Eren?” 

The blinds are closed and the lights are off, so Levi can just about make out Eren’s shape holding his knees to his chest below the window. 

Levi walks around the bed, instantly drops to kneel in front of him. 

“Hey,” he whispers, “look at me.” He curls a hand around Eren’s wrist. The resident’s face is hidden into his knees, but at Levi’s touch, he looks up. 

“Sorry,” he sniffs. “I promise I don’t get like this every time we lose a patient. It’s just… this one reminds me of Haley.”

Levi shakes his head into the darkness. 

“As I told you once before – it’s not a sin to cry.”

Eren snorts. 

“No, but ‘getting snot everywhere is another thing entirely.’” 

He laughs, and Levi laughs, wonders what else he’s committed to memory. 

“I’ll let you off, this time.”

Eren takes a breath, and Levi waits. “Suzie Richards. Neuroblastoma. She died two hours ago. She wanted to be a ballerina.” 

The name coaxes a memory to the forefront of Levi’s mind. “Pineoblastoma?” 

“Yeah – how did you know?”

Levi hesitates. 

“I stole her chart. I wanted to see your handwriting,” he admits, staring down at his feet. “I didn’t believe you’d left me that note.”

He waits for Eren to say something – hopes that he’ll berate him for it, mock him, even. 

He doesn’t, though. Levi listens intently, and then, there it is –

This broken sob tears through him, and he drops his face into his knees once more. Levi moves on autopilot.

He shifts into a sitting position next to him, and then envelopes Eren’s shuddering body into his arms. Pulls him firmly into his chest and holds him there whilst he cries. Cards a hand through his hair, softly. 

Feels the tears soaking through the front of his scrubs.  


At some point, Eren shifts, tilting his face up into the slender curve of Levi’s neck. His cold, wet nose paired with the heat of his breath send an unwelcome shiver down Levi’s spine.

“Sorry,” Eren apologizes, again. 

Levi shrugs. “Don’t be. You were there for me with Evie. It’s only fair that I return the favour.”

Eventually, Eren begins to stop trembling against him. Levi is determined to soothe the pain right from his bones; because this feeling, this helplessness – it eats away at you. It’s the chisel, and them, the clay. Angrily chipping away. Levi creates a shield with all the fallen pieces of himself, houses Eren’s body right into his own.  


They sit there for twenty minutes like that, and Levi outright ignores the way his back protests the hard concrete of the wall behind him. Dismisses the way his muscles start to ache as he keeps Eren there, curled into him, protected.

_Understood._

He’s still working a hand through Eren’s hair when the resident begins to snore against his throat, and Levi panics. 

He’s supposed to be checking on his interns soon.

“Eren.” Nothing. “Eren, wake up.”

Still nothing.

He shakes him, gently, and then, Eren is stirring – shifting against Levi, until he’s managed to wriggle his way out from the safety of his arms. 

“God – I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I’m just so damn tired.” 

Levi stretches. Winces as his joints scream at him. 

“It’s fine,” he tells him, truthfully. “I have to go, though. I’ve got my interns practicing sutures on grapes.” 

Eren laughs. 

Levi moves to stand up but Eren is yanking him back down. 

“Eren –,”

Whatever he was going to say is lost to the back of Eren’s throat.

It’s so nice to kiss him again, and Levi immediately tangles a longing hand into the back of his hair. Tugs a little, experimentally, just to hear the noise he makes. 

“I want you,” he’s saying, the words whispered sweetly against Levi’s lips. “Fuck – I _need_ you.”

If there’s anything Levi wants, it’s to be used and abused by Eren. 

He remembers his words from the week before, however, and Levi’s relenting. 

“I thought you needed time?” he asks, hot and breathless against his face.

“I’ve had time,” says Eren. “And now I just want to fuck you senseless.”

“I’d let you,” Levi breathes, pulling away far enough to look at Eren’s face, obscured by darkness though it is. “I’d let you take me apart right here.” It’s true – if there weren’t interns waiting for him downstairs, Levi would let Eren fuck him raw right now. “But the interns. The _grapes_ , Eren,” he laments. 

It’s so hard to get up. It’s fucking impossible. 

Eren doesn’t let him, anyway. 

Instead, he lifts Levi by the ass. Levi lets it happen, because of course he does – and Eren places him so that he’s sat in his lap, straddling his thighs. 

Levi can feel it – Eren’s achingly hard. 

“You’re not going anywhere,” Eren tells him. “Not yet. I need this.” He drags his tongue over the contours of Levi’s throat. “I need this, and you _deserve_ to let me make a mess of you, after everything you said.” 

Eren’s voice is an aphrodisiac. Levi dips his head, cups the sides of Eren’s neck with both hands. His face is still wet and Levi kisses the moisture from his skin, startlingly aware of the way his cock begins to swell. He adjusts himself, tucks the head beneath the waistband of his boxers. 

“Use me. Rut against me until you come in your pants.”  


And Levi – 

He starts doing exactly that. Consequences be damned, he presses the line of his body against Eren’s, trapping his cock between their stomachs. 

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he tells the ceiling, closing his eyes against the friction, letting the sensation spur him on. “I can’t believe you’ve got me doing this. _In my uniform_.”

Eren responds in kind, the only way Levi would expect him to respond. Curls his arms tighter around Levi’s waist, pushes his body firmer against his own. Levi moans, hand flying up to grip the edge of the window sill above their heads. 

Fucking grinds against Eren like a whore, again, because Eren had asked him to. Because he _needed_ him to.

“Fucking look at you,” Eren marvels, and Levi’s almost glad that the lights are off. He must look fucking depraved, getting himself off like this – using Eren’s body this way. “You’re actually going to come like this, aren’t you? Without me even touching you.”

Levi can feel his knuckles turning white against the window sill. Yes – he’s absolutely going to come like this. It feels sordid, a fucking downright crime that they’re doing this, hidden away, and Levi almost can’t believe it’s real – 

He’s got interns waiting for him, they’re not even in an on call room, and Eren had been sobbing against his chest only twenty minutes ago –

It’s filthy, and wrong, and it feels _so fucking good_ , the way Eren holds him there with that iron grip. 

Levi can’t help the pathetic whimpers that tear themselves from the back of his throat as Eren whispers sweet nothings against the shell of his ear. 

“That’s it, darling,” he encourages, and Levi keens. Isn’t able to remember the last time someone took care of him the way that Eren does. “You’re so good for me.”  


It’s bittersweet and makes Levi ache in all the right ways. 

“Fuck – oh fuck,” Levi moans, molten lava pooling in his belly, and it should be fucking illegal the way his cock grinds so well over the grate of Eren’s abs through his scrubs – “ _shit_ , Eren –,”

And he comes, untouched, right in his fucking pants, just the way that Eren had wanted. 

Eren kisses his face, guides him down, gently.

“Oh, Levi. You’re amazing,” he praises, and Levi sags, hand slipping from the window ledge. “I can’t believe you did that for me. You’re so good.”

It’s worth the horrible stickiness, to hear Eren tell him he did well. 

Even so, the reality sets in, fast – and Levi curses against Eren’s shoulder.

“Eren, I have to get back to the interns. I can’t believe I’ve got come all over my scrubs, _again_.”  


Eren hums lowly into the skin behind Levi’s ear. 

“I’ll go get you some stuff to clean up. And some different scrubs.” He presses a kiss to the side of Levi’s face. “Wait here.”

It’s a stupid thing to say – it’s not like he can go anywhere with a huge fucking wet patch all over the front of his uniform, but he doesn’t say that. 

Instead, he shifts, letting Eren scramble to his feet. The resident is gone in seconds, carefully closing the door behind him. 

Levi sits there like a fucking lemon whilst he waits for him to return. 

He does, only minutes later, wash cloth and a fresh set of scrubs in hand.

“Here,” Eren says, handing him the items. 

Levi tries to move, but his muscles are all seized up. He’d been sat on the floor for far too long. 

Basically, he’s too old for this shit. 

“Let me help.”

Eren holds out a hand, and Levi begrudgingly obliges – lets himself be hauled to his feet. 

“You could at least turn around,” Levi deadpans. “I don’t need an audience to watch me clean up my own fucking come.” He doesn’t mean it to be cruel – and Eren must understand this, because he smiles, and then turns to face the bed. The lights are still off, but even so, just the feel of Eren’s eyes on him are enough to make him blush.

When he’s done, he bundles up the soiled scrubs and sticks them straight in the waste bin – he couldn’t exactly walk around the hospital with them without raising a few eyebrows. Sure, scrubs were often stained with blood, but the lack of it might ring a few alarm bells. 

“Well,” he says, finally, letting Eren turn back around. “I’m glad I could be of service.” 

He walks over to where Eren’s standing by the bed. “I really do need to get back downstairs,” he says. “But we should still talk, with actual words, this time.”  


Eren nods. “I know.”

“Come over later, if you’re up to it? Unless there’s an emergency I should get off at eight.” 

Eren digs the heels of his hands into his eyes and sighs.  


“Honestly, I’m fucking done in, but I’ll still come. I don’t know if I want to be alone tonight.”

That’s – 

That’s not quite what Levi had meant, but if Eren needed the company, he’d give it to him. 

He owed him that, at the very least. 

“Alright. I’ll see you later.”

He’s heading back down the corridor when the epiphany strikes like a bolt of lightning. 

It knocks the air from his lungs and leaves him gripping the side of the elevator for balance.  


The thing is, 

he’s falling. 

In every sense of the word.


	10. pinky promises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this one took a while! 
> 
> anyways i thought i'd let yous all know that i can be found on tumblr @mintakah so if you have any suggestions r.e anything u want from either this fic or any future content that you'd like to see from me, pls let me know!! i'd love to hear from you & writing keeps me going lol xoxoxox

Levi feels disgusting.

Thanks to Eren being fucking insatiable, he’d had to run to the attendings lounge, change in to his regular clothes, drive home, change underwear, then drive back to work and put his scrubs back on. He’d managed to make it back to the interns just under an hour since he left to find Eren, and realizes that he’d have to pick a winner of the cleanest grape sutures even if the work was terrible, just because he’d kept them waiting so long. 

His head spins.

Never in his life has he been so quick to fold to someone. Eren could ask him to get naked and jerk himself off in the middle of the OR just for his viewing pleasure and he’d probably do it.

Well, maybe not _that_ , but still. The point stands.  


Even Erwin never had such a powerful hold over him, and he once had Levi suck him off in his childhood bedroom whilst his mother laid the table for dinner.

Eren enjoyed watching Levi come apart, that much was abundantly clear. Perhaps even more than he enjoyed getting off himself. Levi thinks it might be a power play; if he couldn’t boss Levi around at work, he’d sure as hell make up for it in other ways. 

It doesn’t matter – he’d quickly established himself as _in charge_ , and they hadn’t even had sex yet.  


Levi finds that he can’t get enough of it. 

Maybe it’s about the juxtaposition in power for him, too.  


By the time he makes it back to the interns, they’re all sat at the benches, electronic devices in hand, some of them with headphones in. Apparently, they’d long since given up suturing. The second he walks in the door, they jump – dropping their phones against the worktops and seizing their utensils. 

“Apologies for the delay. Something came up,” he tells them, and it’s not exactly a lie. Fucking hell, if anyone knew what he’d been doing in that little intermission, he’d almost definitely get fired. It’s not like Erwin needed another reason to threaten his career. 

The poor interns are probably just about fit to die of boredom by the time Levi eventually lets them go, and he tries not to dwell too much on the fact that this was the most competitive surgical internship in the country. A program that accepted only the very best of med students. 

_Med students that just spent an hour suturing grapes._

If it wasn’t so awful it might actually be funny, but, hey, character building and all that.

Lucky for them, Levi would spend the next ten surgeries trying to make up for it. 

It’s five o clock by the time he remembers to eat, and by that point, he’s past it. 

He’s been particularly bad, recently, although not on purpose – his schedule had just been more hectic than usual as of late and Levi has become accustomed to running on fumes (and coffee). 

That, and the fact that his earlier epiphany hasn’t exactly helped to pique his appetite. Instead, it leaves knots in his stomach, and he stares blankly at the salad in front of him. 

Petra must have gotten wind of it, because she’s just bounced into the attendings lounge holding a box of Krispy Kreme’s. 

“Are you a rabbit?” she asks, claiming the chair in front of him. 

Levi sighs, dropping his fork into the tupperware. 

“You know I loathe stupid questions,” he deadpans. 

“That I do – but if you’re not a rabbit, then why are you eating rabbit food?” 

She doesn’t wait for an answer – simply slides the box of glazed donuts his way, and Levi frowns. Each time he’d seen Petra recently, she’d been eating some type of sugary treat. He says a silent prayer for whatever unlucky soul had the misfortune of being her dentist.

“I know you’re hellbent on getting diabetes, but don’t bring me down with you.” 

He slides the tray back and Petra pokes her tongue out at him.

“So,” she begins, flipping the lid on the box. She takes a donut, shoving almost the entire thing into her mouth. She chews loudly, and Levi cringes. “Turns out I’m pregnant.”

Levi is lucky not to choke on his coffee. 

“Fuck off.”

“Yep. You were right.” 

“Who’s is it?”

“Well, mine, for a start –,”

“ – shut up, you know what I mean.”

Petra licks her fingers clean and hums. “Oluo’s, going by the dates. I’m nine weeks.”

Oluo Bozado – head of ortho, and the guy she’d been living with up until recently. Really, they’d been sleeping with each other on and off for years, so if it was likely to be anyone’s, it would be Oluo. 

It’s almost impossible for Levi to gage whether he should be pleased for her not. She’s expressionless, staring at him with all the emotion of a wooden spoon. 

“Honestly, I can’t tell if this is a good or bad thing. You aren’t giving me much to work with.”

“Eh,” she says, giving a noncommittal wave of her hand. “I’ve never given much thought to being a parent. Who knows, I might be good at it.”

Levi cocks an eyebrow. “You’re awful with kids,” he teases. 

“Am not.”

“Remember the boy with PCD who’s mother had a three month old baby that wouldn’t stop crying? You suggested giving it whiskey to help it sleep.” 

Petra pouts. “Still don’t think it was a bad idea.” In all honesty, neither did Levi. She brings her legs to her chest, rests her chin against her knees. “You wanna co parent with me?”

“Ha, no.” The thought of having children is worse than the idea of having a job with sociable hours. It just doesn’t fit him. “Does Oluo not want to be involved?” 

Petra shrugs. “Dunno, I haven’t told him yet.”

“Then why are you telling me?”

She shrugs, again, and Levi presses his lips into a thin line. “ _You_ didn’t put the thing in me. I wanted to tell someone who wasn’t involved.” That sentence conjures a particularly unwelcome image of Oluo, and Levi grimaces. “What if he reacts badly?” 

“He won’t,” Levi reassures her. “And if he does, I’ll spit in his coffee.” Petra smiles at him and Levi clears his throat. “Never thought you’d be a mother, much less a geriatric one.” 

He supposes he deserves the pen that bounces off his forehead.

“You asshole, I’m younger than you.” 

Levi scoffs, rubs the offending area. “Isn’t everyone?” 

It certainly feels that way, these days. 

“I _will_ tell him, at some point,” Petra insists. “I’ll probably get him a cake that says ‘should’ve pulled out’, or something like that.” 

Levi wonders if he’s about to lecture a thirty five year old woman – a Doctor, no less – about the important of safe sex. “You weren’t on anything?” he asks, in his best non-judgmental voice. 

Despite his efforts, it must have sounded pretty accusing because Petra is rolling her eyes. “Don’t start, of course I was – nothing’s fool proof.” 

“You didn’t share that opinion when I asked you to get a pregnancy test,” Levi mutters over the rim of his coffee mug. 

“Levi,” Petra starts, lowering her voice despite the two of them being the only ones in the attendings lounge, “we used a condom _and_ I was on the pill. I reckon you were more scared about people finding out you’d slept with a woman.” 

Levi cocks an eyebrow. “For a gay man, that’s embarrassing.” 

“Speaking of gay men,” says Petra, voice assuming a more normal volume, “did you stop being mad at Eren?”

Levi presses his lips into a thin line. “He’s coming over tonight, so I suppose so.”

It’s true – he’s not cross with Eren, but he’s still seething over the whole debacle. Erwin hadn’t mentioned anything else on the subject yet, and it had been a whole week since he accused Levi of malpractice. Hanji had text him only a few days ago to update him on their planned intervention:

_still havent spoken to erwin. hes been in a foul mood all week. waiting for the right moment to tell him hes a fuckwit_

So, that was that. 

He’s not sure when his life became such a mess as to be putting his entire reputation within the medical community into the hands of a crazy peds surgeon, but like he said; since it probably wouldn’t change anything anyway, they were free to give it a shot. 

Personally, he’d been avoiding Erwin this whole time. It was better that way – else he might end up saying something that would definitely come back to bite him on the ass. 

Judgment day would come, and, infuriatingly, there’s nothing he can do about it.

Petra smiles. 

“Look at you, taking my advice,” she says, entirely too pleased with herself. “Wasn’t hard, was it? Now you can both have lots of sex and live happily ever after.”

It seems almost naïve, the way she says that, but Levi supposes that things had been pretty simple for her, so far. Her and Oluo had been on the same page for years – it was casual sex, and that was that. No strings, no complications.

Except a baby, apparently. 

“Things are rarely so simple.”

“Why?” demands Petra. “Not everything has to be complicated.”

“I – it’s just a scary thought, that’s all.”

“Life _is_ scary, Levi. I just found out I’m having a baby. That’s scary.” She gestures toward her stomach as if to illustrate her point. “If we avoid things because we’re scared then nothing would ever happen.”

“Someone’s been reading too many inspirational facebook quotes.”

“ _Someone_ hasn’t been reading enough. So, you gonna tell him you’re head over heels in love with or what?”

Levi rolls his eyes. 

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Why is that ridiculous? It’s written all over your face.”

Oh, as if – Levi scowls at her, eyebrows knitting together in the middle of his forehead. “Fuck off. I don’t even know him that well.”

Petra purses her lips and winks at him. “Didn’t deny it, though.” 

“Okay – until you’ve told Oluo that you’re pregnant, you don’t get to bully me into telling Eren _anything_.” 

The look on Petra’s face is almost disappointment, but not quite. Levi had caught her out. 

She opens her mouth to say something, changes her mind, and then is sticking out her little finger.

“Pinky promise me you won’t tell anyone about this. Not even Hanji. Or Eren.”

Like he’d dare. Still, it was a big secret to share, and at least confiding in him might have lessened the weight on her shoulders, even if a little. Levi sighs dramatically and sticks out his pinky finger from across the table. 

“And,” he says, yanking her closer by the hand, “I’d like to add that until you tell Oluo, you don’t get to lecture me about Eren.”

It doesn’t look like a deal she’s happy about making, going by the way her bottom lip juts out, but she nods anyway. 

“Fine, deal.”

Levi lets her go and closes the lid of his tupperware with a pop before pushing back from the table. 

“If we’re done sharing life stories, I’m going to get back to work,” he says, slipping his uneaten salad into his bag. 

“Don’t act like you don’t love it, you grumpy old man,” Petra quips. She waves at him, and Levi – true to character – raises his hand and flips her off.

*

For once, Levi actually finishes on time. 

It’s a miracle, and he wonders if perhaps the stars are aligning. 

Wonders this for all of five minutes before he runs straight into Erwin, having successfully avoided him for an entire week.

It’s just as he’s on his way out, having almost made it to the fucking exit before he slams right into him, knocking the cup of coffee that he’d been holding and sending splatters all up the front of his shirt. 

“Oops – sorry,” Levi mutters, not sorry in the slightest. 

Erwin huffs loudly, reaching into his pocket and pulling free a tissue. He dabs at himself, and Levi side steps him.

“Erm, Levi,” Erwin’s saying, and Levi curses the very day he was born. 

Turns on his heel and scowls. 

“Yes?”

Levi has a special talent for making monosyllabic words sound even shorter than they already are. 

“I still haven’t had an official declaration from you,” he says, cocking a heavy brow.

Levi seethes. Feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up in anger. Reigns it in – because as unjust as it was, he needed to try not piss Erwin off any further. 

“That’s because there’s nothing to declare.”

It’s not a lie. He and Eren hadn’t made anything official, so really, there was no need to tell Erwin anything. Levi’s words seem to tick over in Erwin’s brain; he stares him down, still dabbing aggressively at his coffee stained shirt. 

“Don’t panic yourself, Erwin. As soon as there’s any changes to my relationship status, you’ll be the first to know.”

He doesn’t wait for Erwin to respond. Instead, he bolts out of the door as fast as he can, digging his car keys free from his jacket pocket as he goes.

Presses the button and hears the familiar click of his doors unlocking. 

It’s always sobering, stepping out into the fresh air from the claustrophobic walls of the hospital. Levi fills his lungs, hand hesitating over the door handle as the surge of oxygen suddenly has him reeling.

Eren was coming over, tonight.

There was no escaping it – he’d invited him. 

One way or another, Eren would be in his apartment, to _talk_ , and God knows that was going to be a challenge in itself. 

Or, if today had been anything to go by, Levi is sure that given half the chance Eren would simply curl into him and fall asleep. The thought of it is tempting – when Eren had been snoring softly against his neck earlier today, Levi had wanted nothing more than to keep him there forever. 

Wonders how the resident had made him so fucking soft, and, as he starts the engine of his car, promises himself that tonight he’ll have a much firmer resolve.

*

Eren arrives dead on eight thirty.

When Levi answers the door, he could fucking die.  


He’s dressed in grey joggers and an oversized hoodie, the baggy sleeves poking out beneath the leather jacket that he’s wearing over the top. His hair is pushed back from his forehead by one of his ridiculous headbands, and of course, it’s the trademark pink. 

“Sorry,” he says, sticking his hands into his pockets. “I came straight from the hospital. This is what I wore in this morning.”

Levi falters for half a second and then remembers how to speak. 

“It’s fine,” he says, as though he hadn’t almost gone into cardiac arrest there and then, “we aren’t exactly doing anything fancy.” 

Luna runs from the lounge and all but slides over the wood floor right into Eren’s legs. 

“That’s easy for you to say,” he says, bending down to stroke her. “You look gorgeous.”

Usually, Levi would have something witty to say, something obnoxious. This time, though, he blinks, and is suddenly very aware of the what he’s wearing, feels horribly overdressed. 

A white shirt, crisp, tucked loosely into a pair of black jeans. The first three buttons undone to expose the valley of his throat and collar bone. Silver belt tight around his narrow hips. 

He hadn’t meant to overdo it, and he was rarely the type to feel self conscious. Still, here Eren was in a pair of adidas tracksuit bottoms looking like he was fresh off the runway. 

Eren’s gaze moves over the length of Levi’s body, once, no, twice – and Levi clears his throat.

“Don’t bother getting any ideas,” he says, stepping aside to let him in. “Not yet, at least.”

Eren shucks his jacket from his shoulders, hangs it right next to Levi’s on the coat hooks by the door. 

“Did you eat yet?” Levi asks, leading him down the hall and into the kitchen. Luna follows, feet tapping away behind them like a tiny drum. Levi presses himself against a counter as Eren mirrors him on the other side.

“Uh, I ate a slice of pizza about an hour ago. And I had a milkshake from the canteen at lunch. What about you?”  


Levi shrugs, drags a hand through his hair. 

“I had a salad.” That’s a big fat lie, the salad sits in the fridge, completely untouched save for a few fork marks in the lettuce. “I’m notoriously bad at remembering to eat, so there’s not a lot of food here. But if you’re hungry I could order a take out –,”

Eren shakes his head and Levi swallows.

“I’m not hungry,” says the resident. Licks his lips anyway, as though he were famished, and Levi knows how to read between the lines. 

He sighs. 

“Eren,” he warns. “We need to talk.” 

Eren averts his gaze, and Levi watches his line of sight. He’s staring blankly at the kettle and Levi moves.

“Coffee?” he offers, but Eren moves too, stands up straight against the countertop. 

He’s on Levi in an instant – curls his fingers around the man’s wrist, keeping his arm suspended where it hovers by the kettle. 

“You wanted to talk,” he says, voice low enough that it might be a threat, “so talk.”

It feels a little silly, with Luna meowing away at them from their feet. Levi holds Eren’s gaze for a few moments, then looks down at where Luna brushes up against his leg. 

The momentary distraction allows Levi the space to refocus. When Eren glances down, he snatches his wrist from his grasp, and flicks the switch on the kettle.

“You fell asleep on me today,” Levi deadpans. “I don’t want you falling asleep again. So I’ll make you a coffee and you’ll drink it.” 

He sets about preparing two cups, tries not to squirm at the feel of Eren’s presence at his back.

“I’m sorry about that,” he says, hand coming to rest against Levi’s hip. “I hope I didn’t get you in trouble.”  


He doesn’t want coffee. Doesn’t need coffee, just needs something to do with his hands, something other than grabbing Eren by the collar and yanking him down to his level, to kiss him breathless right there in the kitchen whilst the kettle hisses away in the background. 

Levi bites the inside of his cheek, grips the counter top as he waits for the water. 

“Not like I can get in any more trouble than I’m already in,” he comments, hopes it’s a decent segway into what brings them here in the first place. 

Eren presses his fingers into Levi’s skin, and then tears away, creating space between them once more.  


Levi backtracks. 

“I didn’t mean it as a dig –,”

“ – I know, I know,” reassures Eren. “I still feel guilty, though. The last thing I want is for our relationship to ever impact your career.”

The switch on the kettle flips as it finally comes to a boil and Levi freezes.

“Relationship,” he repeats, turning to face Eren. “What exactly does that mean?” 

“I dunno. What do you want it to mean?”

What _does_ he want it to mean?

It’s such a simple question but Levi fucking chokes around the idea of asking Eren to be his boyfriend. He’s never asked anyone before – 

“… Levi?” 

Eren’s voice startles his subconscious and he shakes his head. 

“You said you needed time,” he says, eventually, turning back toward the kettle. Puts a spoonful of instant coffee in both mugs. “And then said you wanted to fuck me. Kind of giving me mixed signals.” He gestures toward the fridge for the milk and Eren hands it to him, wordlessly, eyebrows knitting together in the middle of his forehead.

“Oh, mixed signals? You want to talk about me giving _you_ mixed signals?”

Levi pours the milk and lets the spoon hit the sink with a loud clink. 

“Okay, fair enough – but today I abandoned my interns because you needed someone,” he says, handing the carton back to Eren. “I had to drive home and get new underwear whilst my students sutured grapes.”

“I didn’t ask you to come.” 

Levi scoffs, heat rising to his cheeks. 

“You didn’t? Because I distinctly remember you telling me that you deserved to ‘make a mess’ of me –,”

“ – I meant that I didn’t ask you to come find me. You did it because you care about me, didn’t you?” 

Oh. 

He lifts the kettle, pours the water, and hands Eren a mug. 

Stares into his own coffee like an idiot. 

“Isn’t that obvious?” he says, eventually.

Eren stares at him the same way Petra had done when Levi had been showing her Luca’s scans. 

“I mean… apart from today, not really.”

Luna purrs against Eren’s leg. He looks down at her and smiles. 

“Eren, I – this isn’t easy for me,” admits Levi. “I need you to read between the lines a bit here.”

Eren bends down to scratch behind Luna’s ear. “You haven’t been all that nice to me, sir,” he says, and Levi’s nostrils flare. “I think you should say what you mean.”

“You’re a little bastard,” he seethes, trying not to smirk at his bravery. Sips at his coffee and stares him down over the rim. “You really need me to tell you that you’re under my skin?”

Eren stands straight again, placing his coffee on the countertop. “Yeah, ‘cause it sounds so fucking ridiculous coming from you,” he teases, pursing his lips. “Dr. Levi Ackerman, cardio badass, who everyone’s afraid of – telling _me_ how badly he needs me.”

“Scratch your ego, does it?”

Eren grins, all dopey and lopsided. “It does, yeah.”

Levi’s jaw works overtime. 

“I told you already that I like you,” he says. “I’m finding it increasingly difficult to act as though you aren’t on my mind twenty four fucking seven.”

Eren, he parries. 

“You did tell me you like me, but that was before you gave me the cold shoulder after what Erwin said.”

It’s unfair to bring that up again, Levi had already made up for it by coming for Eren in the middle of the fucking neonatal ward, and he frowns.

“I already said I was sorry about that, Eren, let it go.” It’s a warning, and Eren knows it is, because he drops his gaze to the floor. 

“I know you did,” he says, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. “I’m just saying that the hot and cold thing is hard to deal with. You’re incredible, and I feel so lucky that you would even give me the time of day, but I need to know that my time isn’t being wasted.” He pauses, maybe to test the water, and when Levi remains expressionless, he presses on. “People talk. I know how badly Erwin hurt you. I just don’t want you to carry that forward.”

He’s laid bare, letting Eren pick him apart piece by piece. Everything in his body, every call and response, every _molecule_ tells him to wield a defense.  


Instead, he bites the inside of his cheek almost hard enough to draw blood, and sighs. 

“I’m trying not to.”

He says it through gritted teeth. The words force themselves past the barrier of his emotional stronghold, and Eren, he visibly softens. It’s the tilt of his head, the way he lets go of his breath – 

And then he’s walking over to where Levi stands, taking the coffee from his hand and placing it on the counter to the side of him. 

“I know you are,” he says, and then, like always, he’s got Levi right where he wants him. 

Eren braces his hands either side of Levi’s body against the worktop.  


He dips his head and Levi tilts his own upward.  


Meets him in the middle, in more ways than one.

Eventually, Eren lifts him. Places him to sit on the worktop, and Levi parts his legs, lets Eren slot into him like he were always meant to be there. 

Eren curls his fingers into the hair above Levi’s undercut, pulls his head back, until the skin of his throat stretches thin beneath the threat of Eren’s teeth. 

Doesn’t bite, though – instead presses the damp swell of his lips just below the angle of Levi’s jaw, lightly, teasingly.

“I really could eat you,” Eren tells him, voice low and close enough that the words brush against his skin in a way that makes him tremble. “Your attempts at emotional candidness just make me horny as fuck.” He’s laughing, and Levi tilts his head back up to look at him. 

Takes Eren’s chin in his grip, pinching the edges of his mouth together in a way that has the resident cocking an eyebrow at him. 

“I’m glad you find me amusing,” Levi says. “But remember that this is the only circumstance in which I will let you have control.” Eren watches him, pupils blown to the size of galaxies. “I want to make the boundaries perfectly clear. You will _never_ use our relationship to undermine me at work. I’ll let you fuck me, if it fulfills your little power complex, and I suggest you make the most of it.” 

Eren nods. Tears Levi’s hand from his face and pins it behind his back.

“Understood, sir.” 

In all honesty, it’s oddly soothing, letting himself be controlled this way. Levi surrenders, having made his point clear, and wraps his legs around Eren’s waist like a vice. Eren kisses him with bruising force as he slides his hands underneath Levi’s ass, and then Levi’s letting himself be carried, from the kitchen to the bedroom. Doesn’t break for air even once.

Kissing Eren seems always to be like being reborn – all at once, little else matters. The startling clarity with which he can suddenly see the world seems utterly pointless if he’s not here, with Eren, letting himself be kissed into oblivion.

Eren lays him down on the bed, gently. 

Tugs at the bottom of his shirt until he pulls it free of his jeans.

“You wore this on purpose, didn’t you?” Eren says, sliding his hand beneath the thin cotton material. “Knew it’d drive me mad wanting to tear it off you.”

Levi shudders beneath his touch. 

“It wasn’t deliberate,” he says, truthfully. “I can’t help that you’re weak for me.”

Eren hums contemplatively. Removes his hand from beneath Levi’s shirt to start on the buttons, undoing them one by one. Unwraps him life a gift.

It’s a crime, the look on Eren’s face when he eventually parts his shirt. Like Levi’s bare chest is something he hadn’t seen before. As though Levi were the most unbelievable thing he’d ever laid eyes on. 

His hands are at his belt, then. Makes quick work of the clasp, and then he’s yanking the thing from Levi’s hips. Levi watches as he drops the thing off the edge of the bed, hitting the floor with a thud.

“Help me with these,” Eren instructs, and Levi lifts his ass so that Eren can pull his jeans all the way down his legs. 

There’s a flurry of hands as Levi tries to rid Eren of his own clothes, and eventually, he succeeds – Eren hovers above him as miles of smooth, tanned skin, stretching beautifully over well defined muscle. Levi drinks him in like he’s seeing the sunrise for the first time; he’d seen Eren naked before, but never so clearly – usually in the dim lighting of the on call rooms or the cramped confines of a supply closet. He doesn’t have long to marvel in it, though, because Eren’s flipping him over so that he’s lying flat against his belly, throbbing cock trapped beneath him. 

Eren leans over his body.

“Where’s your lube?” he asks, breath hot against the shell of Levi’s ear. 

“Bedside drawer, there should be condoms in there too.”

There’s the sound of shuffling as Eren climbs off of him, followed by the opening and subsequent sliding shut of the drawer. The rustling of the condom wrapper as Eren tears it open. Levi listens, cheek pressed into the pillow, heart hammering a thousand beats a minute against his ribcage – 

and then Eren’s hovering over him again, lean body inches from Levi’s back. 

“Let’s see how well you open up for me, shall we? Ass up, on your knees.”

Levi does as he’s told, pushing himself from the flat of the mattress until he’s positioned on his hands and knees, ass on full display. He shudders; Eren brings a hand around his body to offer a languid stroke of his cock, and Levi moans. 

“Lovely,” Eren croons. Levi leaks into his hand, and Eren responds in kind; uses his thumb to spread the moisture in such a way that has Levi jerking unashamedly into his palm. Eren uses the distraction to press a slick finger into his hole, and Levi drops his head between his arms and cries. 

“You need this just as much as I do, huh?” 

Mentally, Levi tells him yes, he needs this. 

Wants it so fucking bad that he could come like this, in Eren’s hand, before even knowing what if feels like to have Eren breach him. Without knowing the stretch, the sting of his cock filling him right to the brim. 

Outwardly, he simply huffs, hands seeking refuge in the sheets, twisting his fingers into the silk – and Eren adds another finger, and then it’s a verbal onslaught of encouragements whispered hot against the muscles of his back; _“that’s it, darling, open up for me,”_ and _“such a pretty little thing, the way you let me use you,”_ and Levi, he could cry. 

By the time that Eren begins to work his fingers in and out, Levi is sweating, palms slipping against the sheets. He blows the hair from his eyes, just as Eren takes his cock in his hand once more, and squeezes.

“You want to come, don’t you?” he accuses, and Levi whines, the pressure almost too much to handle. “Not yet, sweetheart.”

Oh, fuck. 

Levi pushes back, and then, all of a sudden, he feels it – 

Eren pushes inside of him, and Levi cries.  


Blinks away the stars that bloom in his vision. 

“ _Fuck_ , baby –,”

There’s the sound of Eren hissing, and then his hands are either side of Levi’s hips, his mouth wet against his back. 

“So tight,” he marvels, and Levi can feel him trembling already. Wonders how long he’ll last when the two of them have been craving this for what feels like a lifetime. “So tight for me, sir. Gorgeous.”

He starts to move, then, and Levi’s a wreck, pathetic, mewling beneath him –

“Fucking ruin me, Eren, fuck, _please_ …”

It’s well received, going by the way that Eren builds a speed, and he growls, finger nails cutting crescents into the reddening flesh of Levi’s hips.

“ _Mine_ ,” he grunts, and Levi blinks back tears, “you belong to me, sir, don’t you?” 

There’s no shame, anymore, Levi is past it.

“Yes,” he tells him, breathless, because it’s the truth. 

Because in the space of a few short months, his entire world has shifted on it’s axis. 

He orbits around Eren as though he were the fucking sun.

Eren kisses down his back and finally begins to move his hand, and it’s so good, Levi keens below him, cries his name over and over until it sounds like a mantra. 

Cries until it doesn’t sounds like a name anymore, but rather, a description – an adjective to encompass the debilitating pleasure, the way his soul feels separated from his core, and he floats above himself, lighter than air. 

He knew he wouldn’t last. Levi spills onto the sheets as his arms give way, the side of his face falling flat against the pillow, lids sliding shut whilst Eren drills into him from behind. 

Eventually, his thrusts begin to lose rhythm, and Levi grunts into the pillow as Eren slams into him a final few times. He’s coming, then, the echo of Levi’s name on his tongue, cried helplessly toward the ceiling.  


Levi’s name has never sounded so important as it did just then, a strangled moan torn from the back of Eren’s throat. 

A proclamation wrought from deep inside his lungs.

Things happen around him, then.

The sound of Eren shifting as he pulls out, and the ping of the condom as he ties it off.

The way the bed dips as he climbs back on, and then the proximity as he flops down next to him.

“You okay, sweetheart?” asks Eren, pushing Levi’s hair from his eyes. “You look a little spent.”  


Levi opens one eye and scowls.

“Of course I am. You just fucked the life out of me. Give me a minute, at least.” 

Eren laughs. 

“Sorry. I forget your age.” 

“Little shit.” 

Eren shifts closer, then. Drapes an arm over Levi’s back.

“You working tomorrow?” he asks, and the slight rasp that has crept into his voice is not lost on Levi.

“I’m always working,” Levi deadpans. “Start at seven.”  


Eren hesitates, and when Levi opens his eyes, he’s biting his bottom lip. Starts to move, but Levi’s hand flies out to grab his bicep.

“Don’t you dare fuck and duck me. I’ll ruin your life.”  


It’s an empty threat, of course, and Eren laughs. Leans back over to kiss his shoulder. 

“I’m only going to the toilet, you psychopath,” he murmurs against his skin. “I’m coming back.”

He feels… sated. For the first time in years, and not just sexually. Eren breathes life into Levi, makes him feel a little more human, and a little less empty.

Now, they just had to tell Erwin.


	11. minnesota: the corn capital of the world

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry its been a while life is exhausting

So, the thing is –

Waking up next to Eren is still a novelty. It’s only the second time he’s done it, and the first time in his own bed, and so now he revels in it, pushes his face into the back of Eren’s neck, snakes an arm around his waist.  


He’d thought Eren still asleep but Eren is instantly turning over, and Levi moans, until Eren’s facing him; and then he takes his face in his hands and kisses him. 

“You always this affectionate in the morning?” Eren asks, voice thick with sleep, and it goes straight between Levi’s thighs.

“No,” he lies, and then, groggily, “what time is it?”  


Eren shuffles, hand searching aimlessly for his phone.

“It’s just gone five. You have any surgeries scheduled this morning?”

“No.”

He grabs for his own phone, squints at the offending brightness of the screen. 

There’s a text from Petra:

_**04:30 miss ral the cardio gal** : sooo morning sickness is fucking awful. i’ve been spewing since 3am. pretty pls could you cover my post ops today? Xx_

He’s blearily typing a response when Eren shifts so he’s laying on his back, and Levi has to angle his phone screen away from his line of sight, shielding his message thread with Petra. (Remembers that without his glasses on that Eren probably wouldn’t have been able to see it anyway).

Eren seems oblivious, though, clearly has other things on his mind:

“Reckon we’ve got time for sex?” he asks, and Levi sighs. 

“No,” he deadpans. “I can’t be late. Erwin’s already up my ass about everything I’ve ever done and Petra’s taking the day off so I have to cover both of our post ops.” 

“She sick?”

Levi shrugs. “Probably a bug.” 

“I don’t think I’ve ever known Dr. Ral to take a sick day. She must be really unwell.”

“Must be.” 

He’s hoping Eren won’t press the matter any further, and thankfully, he doesn’t – if only because Levi leans over and kisses him.

In hindsight, it might not have been the best move, because Eren’s arms are around him like a vice, and Levi wriggles, hands slipping uselessly against his biceps. He’s not _really_ trying to break free, but it’s worth it for the self satisfied smirk on Eren’s face. 

“Don’t start,” he warns, “if I’m late I can hardly use you as an excuse.”

“It’s only five,” whines Eren, pressing his face into the crook of Levi’s neck. “You smell so good, I couldn’t possibly let you go. Anyway, I’ll be in more trouble than you if we’re late.” 

Levi stills.

“Eren, I haven’t mentioned anything to Erwin yet. It’ll be everywhere by noon if we turn up together.”

Eren breathes into him, breath falling hot against his neck. 

“Do you want to keep this quiet?” he asks, eventually.  


Levi sighs. 

“I don’t exactly relish in the idea of spreading our business around the hospital, but Erwin will sniff it out eventually, and if it hasn’t come from me, he’ll be unbearable.”

Eren seems to contemplate this, his fingers dancing lightly over Levi’s chest. 

“Levi,” he starts, and Levi bathes in the way his name sounds coming from Eren’s throat – in any variation, whether he’s moaning it toward the ceiling or even just on the tail end of a breathy exhale, “were you going to tell me you gave up your position as head of cardio?”

Oh – 

Levi bites the inside of his cheek.

“Yes,” he says, truthfully. “Or at least if I didn’t get round to it, you’d have found out eventually. I don’t see that it matters that much.” 

“Of course it matters,” insists Eren. “Why did you do it?” 

Honestly, it’s not a conversation Levi wants to get into. Erwin seems to weasel his way in to every part of Levi’s life, uninvited, unwanted – and it irritates him to no end that here they are, in bed, at five am, and somehow, he’s still relevant. 

“I’m not too proud to admit that I wasn’t any good at it,” he starts, and Eren looks up at him.

“That’s crazy. You’re amazing at what you do.”

Levi cocks an eyebrow. 

“I know I’m a good surgeon, Eren, I’m not an idiot. The problem was that it wasn’t always about the surgeries. It came with a lot of other bullshit that I have no interest in.”

Eren hesitates. “So it wasn’t about Erwin?”

That hits a nerve, and Levi bristles. He was either unwittingly transparent, or Eren was just unusually perceptive. 

“I mean – yes, I was tired of him breathing down my neck all the time,” he says, flatly. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. It’s done.” 

He says it with an air of finality and Eren must take the hint, because he says nothing else on the subject, and for this, Levi is glad. 

“Is this official, then?” he asks eventually, a slight lilt returning to his voice. “We didn’t get as far as that last night.”

“No, because you were too busy sticking your tongue down my throat.” 

“ _And_ my cock up your ass, if you remember –,”  


Levi groans – the memory sending a stab of need right into his gut – and finally wriggles free of his grip. 

“Call it what you like,” he says, definitively. “As long as you’re not fucking anyone else, we’re good.” He kicks his legs over the side of the bed and flicks the switch on the lamp, the room suddenly filled with warm light. “We need to set some ground rules, though. You can’t booty call me whenever you feel like it. And when we’re at work, you’re a resident, and I’m your attending. Don’t think you’re getting special treatment. You’re still a brat, just like the the others.” 

There’s a mad ruffling of covers as Eren scrambles against the duvet, and then he’s flinging himself over Levi like a child. 

“So I’m allowed to tell people that you’re my boyfriend?”

He sounds almost incredulous. He’s completely ignored most of what Levi had said, and Levi rolls his eyes. Eren hangs off his shoulders and stares up at him, eyes scanning each crevice of his face as though looking for evidence that Levi might change his mind. 

At some point, Levi registers how it feels almost cathartic to have Eren’s bare skin against his own. In a way that is non sexual – this element of human contact, of _closeness_ , is something that Levi – and it’s not until now that he realizes it, as though the truth had been tucked away deep in his subconscious – had been truly missing. 

“Not until I’ve told Erwin. If he finds out through someone else he’ll have a fucking field day.” 

“When are you going to tell him?”

“I’ll have to tell him this morning. Ugh.” Levi drags a hand through his hair. “He’s gonna jump at the opportunity to accuse me of favoritism.” 

Eren frowns.

“I don’t want to be the reason your job is more difficult.”

In a rare display of tenderness, Levi brings his hand to Eren’s face. Presses the pad of his thumb against his bottom lip, and holds it there, captive, and marvels in the way Eren stares up at him with his big, glassy eyes, so beautiful it’s almost criminal – 

“You aren’t making anything more difficult,” he says, quietly. “Erwin’s just an asshole sometimes.” Eren smiles, and Levi clears his throat. “Nothing I can’t handle, though.” Eren stares at him with the same fascination that one might give the Northern Lights, or something equally as amazing. But Levi knows that his infatuation won’t last forever, and he wasn’t exactly young. He imagines Eren picking him apart, uncovering new layers, only to be disappointed when he realizes there’s little else to be in awe of. Disappointed when he discovers that Levi is unwavering; there’s nothing new to mould. He is, to Eren’s possible dismay, (surgical ability aside) unremarkable. 

“I’m almost forty, Eren,” he says, thumb tracing the scar on his lip. (Makes a mental note to ask him how he got it). “Who I am now is who I’m always going to be. There might be things about me that you don’t like that I’m too old to change.” 

Eren’s defense is exactly what Levi had expected. 

“You might think the same of me,” he says, blinking up at Levi, chin resting lightly on his shoulder. 

It’s a little unfathomable: Eren, he has come to realise, is astonishing, his resolve when it came to Levi unfathomable. His ability to adapt isn’t owed only to his age, but his character; he is incipient in his ethos, in his psychology. Levi swallows the trepidation that sits like a lump in his throat – it isn’t outlandish to think that one day, he might simply outgrow Levi and his inexorable ways. 

He doesn’t say this to Eren, of course.

“I’m just stating the obvious. Twenty eight and thirty eight are two very different ages. I know; I’ve done my twenties.” 

Eren smirks. 

“So _this_ is the conversation we were meant to have last night, huh? I can’t help but think it’s far too early in the morning for this type of honesty.”

Levi tuts, “not to early for sex, though, hmm?” 

“Never too early for sex.”

Eren has this way of making everything feel light. 

“I’m serious, Eren. You might wake up in five years and realise you want to become a monk in Tibet, or that your passion lies in corn farming.” 

Eren looks as though he’s considering this, eyebrows knitting together. “You know what?” he says, finally. "You’re right. Screw medicine. I’m gonna move to Minnesota and chase my dreams –,” 

“Minnesota?”

“Yeah. They’re the corn capital of the world.”  


Levi blinks. “Literally in which circumstance would you have ever come by that information –,” 

Eren steals the words right out of his mouth by leaning up to kiss him, hard. 

Levi lets him, fingers curling beneath his chin. Kisses Eren until they start to get a little carried away, with Eren trying and failing to push Levi back against the bed. Levi pulls away, at once mesmerized and a little grossed out by the string of spit that connects their mouths. 

He wipes at his lips with the back of his hand, whilst Eren licks his own, tongue lapping obscenely at the mix of their saliva. 

Seconds pass where they watch each other, a great dirty smirk plastered right across Eren’s face, and then, finally, profoundly: 

“I wanna fuck you so bad right now. The corn thing really got me going.” 

Levi half sighs, half laughs. Curses his seven am start, and Oluo, for that matter; it’s his fault that Levi has to cover for Petra this morning. 

“Yeah, well, I have patients,” he laments, finally pushing off the bed. “And so do you. Get up and if you’re lucky I might make you a coffee.”

“Can’t people just, like, _not_ need medical intervention for a day –,”

Levi cuts him off by plucking his T shirt from the floor and chucking it at his face.

*

It’s almost ten a.m by the time Levi does make the effort to find Erwin. 

This is unusual in itself; Levi _never_ goes to the trouble of locating the chief – if anything, he actively does his best to avoid him these days. 

As such, the rare occurrence has Erwin cocking an eyebrow at him where he stands in the doorway.

“You’ve come with news, I presume?” he asks, fiddling with the documents on his desk. He’s not sat down – he’s hunched over, hands flying between the stacks of paper, shuffling, organizing. “Let’s make it quick, I have a meeting in fifteen minutes.” 

Levi feels his teeth scraping against each other. “Eren and I are dating.”

“No surprise there. You aren’t as discreet as you think you are, Levi.” And then – Erwin looks up and smiles at him. “I’m pleased for you. But still, you are an attending. You know the rules – no favoritism, no cherry picking and the like.” He hesitates, then, lips pressing into a thin line. “And, erm, the obvious one –,”

Levi cringes. “ _Yes,_ Erwin, Jesus – you don’t have to spell it out.” 

Erwin gives a curt nod. 

“Good.”

“Right,” Levi deadpans. “This has been sufficiently awkward.”

He’s turning on his heel when Erwin calls after him.

“I had Dr. Zoe passionately advocating for you yesterday,” he says, and Levi stills. “I know you well enough to know that you didn’t ask them to. They’re a very good friend.”

Levi stands there, unsure what exactly Erwin expects him to say to that. He isn’t divulging anything Levi didn’t already know. 

“Okay…?” 

Erwin heaves this full body sigh, hands ceasing their movements. He stands up straight and looks at Levi, expression softening.

“I’m just glad, is all. Hanji and I are friends, but when it came to you, they had no problem telling me how unfair they thought I was being. And Dr. Ral has been speaking highly of you, too.” 

Levi waves his hand in a display of bewilderment. 

“What – what are you telling me this for? What are you trying to say?” 

It feels like Erwin’s building up to something, and whatever it is, it can’t be good.

“I’m just saying. Not everything has to be bad, Levi, I’m really not the villain that you’ve come to believe I am.” He hesitates, mouth curling around his next words, as though rethinking them. “I’m glad you have good friends.” 

“Perhaps you should preface your sentences with ‘I’m not trying to mess with your life.’”

Erwin sighs. 

“Do you hate me?” 

Levi frowns. Honestly? No. He doesn’t hate Erwin – nor does he particularly _like_ him at the moment – but it was difficult to manifest such strong negative feelings about someone whom you used to love. Erwin may be an asshole, but Levi isn’t so short sighted as to completely disregard all of his good traits, too. There was a time, however long ago, that Erwin was Levi’s favourite person in the world. He wouldn’t have fallen in love with him if he had no redeemable qualities. 

“No,” he says, truthfully. “That would take too much energy.”

It’s not a satisfying answer, if the way Erwin’s shoulders sink a little is anything to go by. “Are we still friends?”

Well, isn’t that the killer question. 

_It should be me asking you that,_ Levi wants to say. _You’re the one trying to hurt my reputation._

“I don’t know,” he says instead. “Are we?”

There’s a moment in which Erwin stares him down, the expression on his face unreadable.  


Erwin lifts his shoulders in an almost defeated shrug. 

“I’d like to think so. Perhaps we should catch up, you know, clear the air. Are you free tomorrow evening, or do you and Eren have plans?”

The suddenness of the unexpected question has Levi reeling a little. He and Erwin haven’t met up outside of work in months, and quite honestly, he isn’t even sure what they would have to talk about aside from the hospital anymore. It’s an innocent enough proposition but the thought of being alone with him, of having no one else to fill the gaps in conversation – it makes Levi’s toes curl. On the other hand, it might be better to get it over and done with sooner rather than later; to nip the bitterness in the bud, as it were. Perhaps if he accepted, the time spent with Erwin outside of work might placate him, provide a little incentive not to continue on his obvious warpath against Levi – however unlikely that may be. 

He thinks of Eren, then, wonders if he’d mind Levi spending time with Erwin, his _ex_ , and even though he’d made it perfectly clear that he harbored no romantic feelings for the man, Levi thinks back to when Erwin had all but admitted he still felt a particular way about Levi. Even if Levi had thought it was complete bullshit, it leaves a bad taste in his mouth all the same, and he decides the best thing to do would be to ask Eren how he felt about it. 

“I’ll see,” he says, thankful for the sudden beep of his pager. “Depends what time I get off.”

He takes the device out of his pocket and holds it up, as though to prove he actually _was_ required and that he wasn’t just running away, (as he had a tendency to do), and Erwin nods.

He bids Levi goodbye and Levi closes the door behind him, making a mental note to try and catch Eren before the day was over. Decides, resolutely, that he would finally take advantage of his offer of free dinner at _Alessio’s_ by asking Eren on an actual date.

*

Eren’s in the ER when Levi does find him, carefully removing debris from the arm of a kid, probably no more than seventeen. He’s covered in lacerations and scuff marks, but all fairly superficial. Levi guesses he’d come off his bike and if the way Eren is carefully berating him is anything to go by, then he was right. 

“…actually really dangerous, especially if you’re not going to wear leathers,” Eren is saying. 

It’s a fairly slow morning; once Levi had finished both his and Petra’s post ops, he’d migrated toward the ER, having (suspiciously) _no_ surgeries that afternoon. Unless something serious came in, he’d probably spend the day moving from pillar to post, where ever he was needed, and the lack of chaos actually sets the tips of his fingers abuzz, eagerly seeking someone to heal, something to set his attention to. 

So now, when he looks around the ER and sees that is mostly quiet, he pulls up a stool to the other side of Eren’s patient. 

“What happened here?” he asks, and the kid rolls his eyes as Eren heaves an overdramatic sigh. 

Levi snaps the latex gloves against his wrists, as Eren hands him a pair of tweezers. 

“ _Someone_ was going way over the speed limit and crashed into a tree,” he explains, and Levi’s never heard such a firm tone coming from him before. “Not to mention the fact he was driving without a license.”  


The kid groans, loudly, irritably – and leans his head against the pillows. 

“Yeah, you made your point,” he complains, and Levi cocks an eyebrow at him as he sets to work removing chunks of dirt and other rubbish from the graze on the side of his cheek. “You don’t have to keep banging on about it.”

“Hmm,” Levi hums, and spares a glance to Eren, who shares his disapproval. “Someone should. You could have hurt somebody else.”

“Oh, he knows that. Don’t you, Oliver?” Eren probes, and Oliver sighs. 

“I thought you were supposed to treat my wounds, not lecture me.” Eren sticks his tongue into his cheek, and, deliberate or not, removes a rather large piece of debris from Oliver’s forearm, perhaps more aggressively than needed, and Oliver hisses. “Ouch! That hurt.” 

“Good,” Eren bites, and Levi smirks. “Maybe it’ll stop you from doing it again. You’re lucky to have only come out with a few cuts and scrapes, it could have been way worse.” 

“Haven’t you ever done anything reckless?” Oliver says, and Eren side eyes Levi in a way that makes Levi’s stomach flip. “Well, I suppose you wouldn’t remember – was probably a million years ago for you.” 

It’s the first time Levi’s ever witnessed Eren being teased for being old – and he tries not to laugh. 

“Less of the attitude, or I’ll make this hurt even more,” Eren threatens, but it’s empty, and Levi swears he can see the corner of his mouth tip up despite himself. 

The minutes pass, in which the two of them work diligently to remove the bulk of the debris, and then they patch him up. When they’re done, Eren discharges him with the promise that if he ever saw him in the ER again that he would ‘forget’ to administer any pain medication, and Oliver frowns and flips him off. 

And then, Eren bundles Levi into the nearest supply closet, and Levi’s already half hard when Eren kisses him.

“You’re hot when you’re angry,” he tells Eren, and Eren laughs into his mouth, drags a hand through his hair. 

“Little fucker, wasn’t he? ‘A million years ago’ – I’m not even thirty.” 

He kisses down Levi’s throat and Levi makes this little sound of approval, a low moan, and he knows it goes straight to Eren’s cock because he squeezes Levi a little tighter where he holds him; one hand curled possessively around the back of his neck and the other at his hip. 

“I’ve no sympathy for you,” Levi teases, but it’s true – he doesn’t, not in the slightest. It’s the very least Eren deserves, with his glowing skin and his energy and complete lack of frown lines. Eren laughs and Levi slides his hand down the curve of his back, all the way to the round swell of his ass cheek. “I wanted to ask you,” he says, leaning up to kiss him again. “I still have that offer from _Alessio’s_.” 

“That’s not a question,” Eren says, tilts his head to breathe the words against the shell of Levi’s ear. Grabs Levi’s thigh, then, and yanks his leg up, slotting into him like a puzzle piece, just the way he had the first time they’d fooled around in a closet. Presses against him so nicely that it tears this animalistic growl from Levi’s throat. 

“ _Fuck_ – you know exactly what I’m asking, brat –,”

“I do, but I want you to ask me again.”  


Levi tangles his fingers into the hair at Eren’s nape. Pulls his head back, hard.

“Jesus – you’re so obvious,” he says, the thin arch of his cupid’s bow ghosting softly against Eren’s jaw, “you’re so fucking obsessed with me, Eren, it’s unbelievable.”  


It’s the first time he’s berated Eren in this way, and he stills a little, wonders what the reaction might be. 

“That’s rich, coming from the man who literally came in his pants just because I asked him to,” he jibes, and then he’s shifting them, takes back control in the most Eren like way possible. “You were _covered_ , remember, sweetheart? All soaked with your own come, and I didn’t even have to touch you.” He forces Levi back, right up against the wall, hard but not hard enough to wind him, and traps a leg between his thighs. Each movement is an echo of the time before, and it’s so bad, so irresponsible of them, so risky. 

“You’re right, though,” Eren says, arms either side of Levi’s head. “I want to take you apart, Dr. Ackerman. Piece by piece. And I will, because as much as I might be obsessed with you – you’re a little _slut_ for me. You’d do anything I asked you to, wouldn’t you?” It’s so embarrassingly true, and Levi can feel himself blushing, the reality of it maddening. And then, as if to prove his point: “I want you to get on your knees and make me come, right here.” 

It’s not something Levi can argue with, and he digs his fingers into the muscles of Eren’s back, intoxicated by the masterful way in which Eren manipulates him – calling him both _Doctor_ and _little slut_ almost in the same breath. 

He is hypnotized by Eren, utterly spellbound. 

“Have dinner with me,” he says, sliding his hand down the front of Eren’s pants, obligingly, starts him off with long, slow strokes. (To Hell with Erwin’s rules.) “Tonight.”

Eren leans down, catches his mouth in a kiss, as Levi starts to work his hand up and down, and then all of a sudden he’s dropping to his knees like Eren had told him to – _“that’s it, my good little slut,”_ – and Levi swallows greedily around Eren’s cock. Eren chokes a strangled “ _yes_ ,” between breaths, and then, he’s lost – bucking his hips helplessly until he has to throw a hand over his mouth to stop the cries from tumbling out – and he comes, rope after rope hitting the back of Levi’s throat, and Levi stares up at him as he takes it all, completely mesmerized by the look on Eren’s face.


	12. reading between the lines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i just had confirmation that a course i'm due to be taking for my job is going ahead which means i'm gonna be busy with revision and exam prep for a while so updates will definitely not be so frequent!! so i thought i'd chuck this up for yall whilst i get my life together lmaooooo 
> 
> ALSO the manga is literally killing me dead rn so writing these two as massive dorks has been the only thing getting me through 
> 
> EDIT: TW for mentions of domestic violence! should have already put this in! x

When Levi does finish work, he all but races home, desperate to shower and wash away the taste and smell of the hospital the way he does every evening. 

This time, though, it’s because he was due to be meeting Eren at the restaurant in an hour. There are still traces of blood in his hairline – before he’d left, the ER had picked up; he’d treated a patient who had taken a revolving saw to the chest (it hadn’t been as bad as it sounds, the saw hadn’t gone through to the heart muscle, thankfully) and then there had been a woman who’d vomited blood over Levi’s face as he’d been listening to her chest. 

“I’m so sorry,” she’d spluttered, as Levi had wiped the offending substance from his eyes. It had been projectile, came shooting from her mouth like a rocket, and Levi had simply shook his head, told her not to worry. Unfortunately, Levi believed her to be the victim of domestic abuse – although seven months pregnant, her face had been littered in bruises, and Levi suspected internal injuries. 

“It’s alright,” he’d reassured her, as Petra had come rushing to take over. She’d taken the morning off and had come in at lunchtime having finally finished throwing up, and Levi quietly admired her commitment to the job. “I’ve had much worse.” 

Levi had pulled Petra to one side as she’d handed him a wash cloth, gently maneuvering her by her shoulder away from the bed. She’d tended to him, diligently, scrubbing at his hairline whilst he cleaned the excess from his eyes. 

“Are you sure you’re okay to take this?” he’d asked her, and at the look on Petra’s face he’d sighed. “I think it’s domestic violence. I don’t mind staying if you want to sit this one out.” 

She’d smiled at him. “Levi,” she’d started, swiping her thumb across his eyebrow. “I might be pregnant but I’m still a doctor, first and foremost. Go and enjoy your date with Eren.”

Levi had wanted to ask her then if she’d told Oluo yet – couldn’t, anyway, given the circumstances – because something about her demeanor seemed wrong, a little off. He’d put it down to her feeling unwell, but the idea that she might have told Oluo and that he might have reacted badly pisses him off to no end.

He did leave, albeit reluctantly, assuring Petra that if she changed her mind she only had to call, regardless of the time. 

So now, he stands under the shower head, lets the water rinse the day away, piece by piece, watches as the remnants of blood mix with the water, swirling into a milky shade of pink as it disappears down the plughole. 

Towels himself off and dresses in a crisp white shirt and black jeans, rolls the sleeves to his elbows, sprays himself in his favourite cologne. It’s basic, but his attire usually is – he’s rarely out of scrubs and so doesn’t often go to the effort of buying clothes, but even so, he isn’t blind. Knows the power of monochrome, especially against his skin, against the dark hue of his hair. 

Adds his stupidly overpriced Armani watch around his wrist: it isn’t the one he wears to work, of course, and not something he had purchased for himself – for his thirty fifth birthday Hanji had all of the attendings chip in to buy it for him as a gift. Admittedly, it was beautiful; this shining silver clock face and soft black leather band, which he only wore on special occasions.

This, he decided, was as special an occasion as any. 

He studies himself in the mirror – Levi wasn’t self conscious, by anyone’s standards, but now he scrutinizes his reflection, the frown lines across his skin. The bags beneath his eyes that age him beyond his years. 

Wonders, absently, where his youth had gone.

He knows it’s because of Eren’s presence in his life, because Eren is the personification of youth, and for years now he’d spent the time he had outside of work with people his own age. It makes him self aware of the inevitable passing of the seconds, the hours, the days – how he’d spent five years of his life pining after a man who never loved him, and then, the hilarity of it – that now he thought himself ready to open up once more, his youth had simply moved on, and left in it’s wake the empty husk of a man, bitter and tired and _old_.

Looks down at his hands and finds it at least a little sobering, even if they are covered in bumps and calluses: each imperfection serves as evidence of the many years he had spent holding surgical utensils, of putting the lives of others before his own. 

He’d called Hanji on his way home from work, told them that he and Eren had made things official and how they were having dinner together this evening, and had to actually turn the volume down in his car as they’d squealed down the line. 

“ _Alessio’s_ is so romantic, too, Levi, I can’t believe you’re actually going to wine and dine him,” they’d said, and Levi had had to remind them that the dinner was on the house, so it didn’t really count. 

He’d also mentioned his conversation with Erwin, and how he knew that Hanji had spoken to him about his behaving like a total dick, and Hanji had laughed, this short, biting laugh.

“Yes, well, you were right, it didn’t make a difference,” they lamented, and Levi could hear the defeat in their voice. “Still, though, miracles have happened. I mean, _you_ have a boyfriend, so who knows –,” and then Levi had called them an ass and hung up the phone with the promise that they’d catch up the following day. 

He makes it to the restaurant with ten minutes to spare, and waits outside the front entrance. Reads an article about the accessibility of piggyback transplants in modern surgery, and the author, a Dr. Rumachandra of a research facility in Switzerland, credits him in his piece: 

_… the first successful heterotopic transplant was of course performed by Dr. Levi Ackerman, the lead cardiothoracic surgeon of Trost Medical, in 2016. We can only hope that with further funding, his revolutionary technique can be taught and utilized in hospitals all over the world, as with an estimated success rate of 86%, the method proves ground breaking and will shape the innovation of heart surgery for years to come..._

“…Am I interrupting?” comes Eren’s voice, filtering it’s way past the flood of technical jargon that pollutes Levi’s mind almost every waking second, and all of a sudden, it is quiet.

Eren looks gorgeous, of course; clad in a white T shirt and dark blazer, hair styled back the same way he had it that night at the bar. His legs seem to go on forever in the tight jeans he wears, and Levi swallows against the sudden dryness in his throat. 

He slips his phone into his pocket and leans up to meet Eren for a kiss.

“I was just reading an article from this month’s cardio journal,” he says, “one of the leads at a research clinic in Switzerland wants to make my piggyback method standard practice.”

Eren grins. “Of course he does. It’s revolutionary.”

Eren leads Levi inside with a palm against the small of his back, and Levi practically glows, feels a little giddy; the gesture is so small but so possessive that it leaves him lightheaded. 

Levi is about to tell the front of house staff that he has a reservation, but when the gentleman behind the podium looks up at him, he’s already beaming. 

“Good evening, Doctors,” he greets them, extending his hand at first to Levi, and then to Eren. “We’ve prepared our finest table for you both, right this way.” 

They follow the man to a table in front of a marvelous bay window, donned with a beautiful candelabra and a vase containing a single white rose. There’s already a bottle of wine on ice, and Eren cocks an eyebrow at Levi, clearly impressed.

Once sat down, Eren leans in across the table.

“The most I’ve ever gotten from my patients is a finger painting of me as a snail,” he whispers, and Levi smirks. “I think I chose the wrong specialty.” 

“We don’t do it for the rewards, Dr. Jaeger,” Levi teases. “Although this is a particularly lavish thank you, it has to be said.”

Levi pours them each a glass of wine, and Eren sits with his arm over the back of his chair, looks like a supermodel. The thing about Eren is that he demands all of the attention in the room without even trying; he’s the sort of beautiful that makes you want to ask questions; how he takes his coffee, or what music he listens to. It makes Levi realise he really doesn’t know anything about Eren. He remains an enigma to Levi, and the first thing he wants to know is the backstory to that lovely little scar that runs vertically from the inner corner of his lip.  


When Levi asks him about it, though, Eren laughs, the sound thick like honey yet viscous enough to wash over Levi like a tidal wave. 

"It’s not a heroic story,” he tells him, sipping his wine. “Mikasa pushed me off my bike when we were kids and I fell face first into a concrete slab. Tore my lip, blood everywhere. Looked like a crime scene.”

Levi laughs at that. 

“I have to admit, that’s not what I thought you were going to say.”

“What, you thought I got it defending a damsel in distress, or something?”

It’s funny because that’s exactly what Levi thought. “Yes, actually,” he says. 

“Ha,” Eren laughs. “No, I don’t make a habit of starting bar fights. It was one time.” 

The waiter comes and takes their orders, and then to Levi’s dismay, the conversation turns to Levi’s family. He offers the basics, the most threadbare pieces of information. He never knew his father. His mother really _had_ died when he was a child, (it wasn’t just a faux sob story he’d sold to Eren that day in the supermarket) and his uncle really had taken him in. 

It isn’t that he doesn’t want to tell Eren about his life – it’s just that Levi doesn’t think it’s particularly interesting. His childhood was difficult, but who’s wasn’t, in some way or another? The story offers little of value, and no real insight into his character. 

Levi had built himself from the ground up, alone. He owed his success to no one but himself, and that was that. 

Eren calls him mysterious and Levi laughs. 

“I’m not very interesting, Eren,” Levi admits over their starters, and Eren rolls his eyes at him. 

“Bullshit,” Eren insists. “You’re a popular subject among the residents. People want to know what makes you tick.”

 _You,_ Levi wants to say. 

“Well, once you’ve figured it out, you can let them know,” he says instead, and winks at him.  


The evening passes in a haze of snide remarks and stolen glances, and eventually, (three glasses of wine deep) Levi musters the courage to ask the question that’s been weighing heavy on his chest since that morning.

“I told Erwin about us,” he begins, pushing his plate away. “He was very cryptic about how he felt. Said he was pleased but then reminded me of my position.”

“That’s the best we could have hoped for, don’t you think?” Eren asks, finger circling the top of his empty glass. 

“Yes,” agrees Levi. “But he’s still acting weird.” He looks up at Eren. Treads carefully around his next words. “In fact, he asked to see me tomorrow evening. To ‘clear the air’, as he put it.”

The air feels pregnant, all of a sudden – tense, alive with an uncomfortable static that sets Levi’s teeth on edge.

“Okay,” says Eren, eventually. “I think that’ll be good for the two of you.”

Levi’s eyes narrow a little in suspicion, fingers curling tighter around the neck of his wine glass. “You do?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

The question feels like a trap and Levi hesitates.

“He’s my ex –,”

“Yeah, and your boss.” As though it were as simple as that. Eren moves, leans across the table for the wine, shares the last dregs between the two of them. Levi watches him like he were a loaded weapon, ready to fire at any moment. 

“If you’re not okay with it, I’ll say no,” says Levi, as Eren places the empty bottle to one side. “It really doesn’t matter. The only reason I’d ever consider it is to keep him off my back.”

Is this –

Is this fair? Is it fair for Levi to be asking Eren this? It wasn’t like the man could say no, not when Levi had pitched it as an attempt to placate Erwin, to lessen the weight of his overbearing presence. To make his _own_ life easier. 

He hates himself a little as he watches the cogs turn behind Eren’s eyes, probably imagining all the ways in which Levi might betray him, or perhaps he’s thinking of all the things he’d rather say in place of assuring Levi that it wasn’t a big deal. 

“Levi, listen,” Eren sighs, and then all of a sudden he’s reaching for Levi’s hand. Levi lets him, and Eren turns his palm face up, softly traces the lines with his index finger. “I get how difficult it must be for you. I think if there’s any chance it might make your life a little easier at work, then you should do it.” 

“It might not,” Levi sighs. “But I’m hoping if I can catch him out of the hospital, then perhaps I can appeal to his human side. It’s in there, somewhere, I think.” 

Eren smiles at him, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. 

“I'm sure it is," he says, and Levi can tell he means it. Eren was honest about the way he saw the world and the people in it, something that makes Levi feel horribly guilty for a reason that he can't place. "Whatever you need to do, Levi." 

Levi blinks at their hands, Eren’s words from the night at Mikasa’s bar replaying in his head like a broken record. _No one will ever be Erwin, will they?_ Silently prays to God that he doesn’t still believe that. 

In fact – 

No, it’s true.

No one ever _will_ be Erwin, and he doesn’t want them to. Least of all Eren. 

Because, the reality is this: 

He wants Eren. 

Badly.

It was more than sex, that much was abundantly clear, but after half a bottle of wine and the way Eren’s foot’s now rubs menacingly against his ankle, his mind has started to feel a little addled with lust, a little foggy – and Eren must feel the same, because when they dismiss the idea of dessert, he had simply looked at Levi and told him that he _was_ dessert, and then flashed him a wicked smile, and it’s so dumb and cheesy that it sets off butterflies in Levi’s stomach. 

Levi invites Eren back to his apartment, and of course Eren agrees, and they take an Uber back. The second the doors had closed to the elevator, Levi launches himself at Eren.

Eren receives him, gladly – yanks the bottom of his shirt free of his belt and slides a hand underneath, palm flat over the contours of Levi’s back as they kiss, another twisting deep into his hair. 

“I can’t – fuck, I can’t get enough,” Levi breathes against his lips, pulling desperately at the lapels of Eren’s blazer. It’s a frenzy, this mad tsunami of hands, and it’s almost _stressful_ to Levi, this inability to reach each part of Eren, to hold each part of his body in his mouth at one time. 

“I know,” says Eren, pushing his back to the wall. “I know.” 

And Levi believes him – he _does_ know, he shares that pain, the ache of wanting so badly that it tears him apart from the inside out. It’s a relief to know that he isn’t alone in the torturous reality that skin on skin will simply never be enough; that they each crave more, somehow, even when there is nothing more to be had. 

The elevator dings as it reaches Levi’s floor, but it’s not enough to coax them apart. 

The doors are all the way open by the time they realise they are being observed. There stands his neighbor, wide eyed and red faced, and Levi yanks his shirt back down and fixes his hair as the two of them exit the lift, awkwardly side stepping the poor woman who looks as though she’d just witnessed a murder. 

They wait until the elevator doors have safely closed on her before they break into a fit of laughter, and then Levi’s fumbling for his door key as Eren stands there, still giggling, a red flush creeping up his neck.

“That woman already hates me,” Levi says, turning his key in the lock. “Luna got out the flat once and pissed on her doormat.” 

He lets them inside, and the second the door closes, it’s a free for all. 

Clothes are discarded down the hall – first Eren’s blazer, and then his shirt, and then Levi’s belt is torn from his hips, until eventually, they are naked and panting and connected in every way possible. Eren, sat on the edge of the bed, and Levi, straddling his thighs, back sliding against the hard muscles of Eren’s chest, Eren’s hand curled around his throat as Levi rides him. 

At some point, they cease to exist as two separate beings; there is a definitive moment when Levi is stripped of his singularity – he exists now as a collection of feelings and thoughts, the most primal of which being the absolute truth that he belongs to Eren, completely, without shame – and the two of them are broken down to their most basic components, as a cumulation of atoms, that fracture and disperse and then come together again, wound so tightly and intricately that it is impossible to identify which parts belonged to who in the first place.

He’s floating, now, somewhere between lost and found; existing at once in a state of all and nothing, somewhere indeterminable, impossible. Eren has this way of reducing him to the most witless he’s ever been, but it isn’t until he wraps a hand around Levi that he becomes utterly nonsensical, even to himself – _“fuck, Eren, god, that’s – I can’t, please, I can’t, gonna – gonna come,”_ and Eren guides him through it, the way he always seemed to – _“that’s it, darling, you’re doing such a good job,”_ and Levi realizes, as the crescendo of his orgasm washes over him, that this is what he wants, every day, for the rest of his life.

Eren makes Levi come another four times that night, and by the third, Levi almost tells him that he loves him.

Almost.


End file.
